


don't follow me to where i'll go

by beggars_visored



Series: i'll chase you to the ends of the earth [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Canon Gay Character, Canon Gay Relationship, Fluff and Smut, Gay Male Character, Gay Sex, M/M, Romantic Comedy, Sad, Sad Louis, School, Smut, Teacher Liam, Teacher Louis, Teacher Zayn, did i mention gay?, lots of gay fyi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-16
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2017-12-26 19:51:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 38,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/969636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beggars_visored/pseuds/beggars_visored
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis teaches Art History. Harry is the new European History teacher. Things happen.</p>
<p>-Title taken from Natalie Merchant's "Frozen Charlotte"-</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you like this!!!! It's my first work, but we'll see how this goes.
> 
> PLEASE COMMENT and let me know what I can do to improve! Thanks in advance :)

            All that Louis can smell is smoke. It’s not exactly pleasant, but it’s not exactly bothersome either. It’s just the thickness of smoke, curling its tendrils around his nose and drawing him in—

            _Oh fuck_ , Louis thinks. _Smoke. In my house. Not good._

            He jumps up, almost tripping over the stack of pizza boxes left on his floor before he remembers that ideally he should  be down there with them, because if there really is a fire he would be about to walk smack into it. So he gets down on his hands and knees and crawls like his dad used to when he was a kid and they would play ponies except there is smoke and smoke is bad.

            He heads toward his kitchen, surprised the alarms haven’t gone off yet. Or that he hasn’t gotten soaked by the sprinkler system attached in the ceiling. He’s not sure which is worse, but he’s pretty sure it’s the soaking part because Louis knows his hair took about three hours to perfect last night before school—

            School. Everything slams into him like a freight train, pooling back from yesterday before he crashed on the couch in a haze. Liam and Zayn coming over to have their annual End-Of-Summer bash, the X-Factor on telly, singing drunkenly along to the worst of the auditions, ordering too much pizza even though they knew school started at six something in the morning. Right. That happened.

            Louis checks his watch on his way across the floor. It’s still dark out. Four in the morning. _Good._ That means he still has time to get ready and pick out his outfit and all that. Which is crucial. Nothing makes a bigger impression than a first day of school outfit.

            He finally gets to the kitchen counter where the smoke smells the strongest, and since it’s too dark to see anything, he has to follow his nose like a basset hound to the source. On his way up to try to find what’s happening he smacks his head on the granite and lets out a loud expletive before remembering that his phone is likely in his pocket, so he pulls it out for the light.

            His phone background is him and Stan. Stan, the little fucker. Why the hell did he have to screw everything up, right before the most stressful time of his life? Louis cursed his mother to the far reaches of hell for ever birthing such a monster and gropes around with the phone to find the smoldering culprit.

            It’s just a cigarette, laying on the counter-top, the ash having left a smart rust-colored mark on the deep ebony of the surface it rests on. Louis groans, half out of annoyance that Zayn would have left his lit cigarette on granite (Really? Granite?) and half out of relief that it wasn’t an inferno. Trying to clean that up and getting ready to go meet his new students would just be too much to deal with.

            As he stands up and scratches at his leg through his flannel pajama pants, he thinks back to when he started teaching. It had to have been four years ago. He was right out of uni, full of hope and wearing rose-colored glasses and carrying an art history degree with the hope of working for the Royal Gallery. Instead, he’s here, teaching secondary school to a bunch of bratty teenagers who would rather sleep or text their friends than listen about the nuances of Post-Impressionist Art and the revolutionary undercurrents of Michelangelo.

            It’s not like he doesn’t like his job, because he does. Art is his passion, and he tries to make it fun. Most of the time it works, like the lesson where he makes his kids do finger-painting or the one where they melt crayons and see what happens. It’s just that he would rather be spending quality time with the works housed in storage at the gallery, brushing the dust off of fine pieces, breathing the air of Monet or creating the displays for a Picasso exhibit. Hell, even if he gave guided tours, it would be something. People might listen to him.

            But he’s here, and he’s got this job, and it starts in an hour, and he’s got to get ready. Stripping off his sweaty and stain-covered (where did that blue come from?) Doncaster football shirt and those pajama pants which make his legs itch, Louis gets in the shower and cranks up the hot water while he listens to Radio 1 from his phone outside.

            Every year, every day, it’s the same damn thing. He gets up, showers, gets dressed, drives to school, teaches, hangs out with Liam and Zayn at a pub, comes home and eats take-away, pours a glass of wine to watch Graham Norton, goes to bed, wash, rinse, repeat. The worst part is falling into bed, when he’s staring at the ceiling with only his own thoughts and doubts to keep him company. It used to be Stan, he used to be there. But then that happened, and he’d rather not dwell on it.

            He towels his hair dry after turning the shower off, and then stands in the bathroom and stares at himself in the mirror. He has chocolate brown eyes, the kind you could drown in, and a smile that dazzles just enough that it masks the pain hidden underneath. He has wild, messy auburn hair, and sometimes when he’s lazy or feeling particularly artsy he wears those big thick glasses that he loves to hate. On his wrist he wears that bracelet that Zayn and Liam made him after Stan, those thick copper and lace-like strands of fabric woven together. He likes to think it says something about finding light in the dark.

            Stan used to tease him about being short, and he is. Sort of. He’s a nice hugging height, and fits nicely in that crook between a person’s collar-bone and shoulder. He misses breathing in that scent, leaving marks of his ownership of that spot. It was his, and now it’s not, and he just has to stare at himself in the mirror.

            After he feels sufficiently air-dried, Louis throws on a pair of dress jeans, some boating shoes, and a tight-fitting dress shirt with short sleeves and a plaid pattern. Being an art teacher lets him get away with outfits most other people couldn’t, but he’s not complaining. He puts the news on while he fixes himself breakfast, a yogurt parfait with mixed granola and berries, and leans lazily against the counter to eat while surveying the mess of his apartment.

            It’s just a bit too big for one person, but Stan always said it was a bit too small for two. There’s a main living space fitted with a telly and a couch Louis snagged from the curb (and then doused in bleach, Febreeze, and possibly kerosene) along with a decrepit coffee table and a desk lamp. The kitchen is tiny, and flows right into the den, but it has what it needs. There’s a small table in the middle with two—no, one chair and usually a stack of papers he has to grade covering the surface. There’s a bedroom and a small bathroom on opposite sides of a small hallway, and at the end of said hallway is a balcony looking out onto the skyline.

            Currently, there are empty wine glasses, dirty paper plates, and those pizza boxes Louis tripped over lying in the middle of his floor, another stain on his couch, trash littering the kitchen, and a sink full of days of dirty dishes. He knows he should clean it up, but he doesn’t have the energy anymore. It takes everything out of him just to get to school, come home with Chinese, and grade some papers. Cleaning is out of the question for right now.

            Once he’s done his parfait, he throws the yogurt cup into the already full trash, dumps his spoon in the sink, and slings his bag over his shoulder. Checking to make sure he has everything safely secured and away from the sight of potential thieves, he locks the door and heads down the stairs to his car.

            It’s an old, beat-up thing, from before Louis was even born, but he kinda likes it. It was cute back in its heyday, and it’s got a tape deck and slightly fuzzy radio, plus a space where the car phone used to go, but it gets decent gas mileage and doesn’t (regularly) break down. He starts the engine and pulls out of the parking garage. The car only sputters a few times, which is better than normal, and only stalls once at a stop light. This might be a good year after all.

            Louis pulls into the parking lot at 6:35 AM, precisely fourteen minutes before the staff meeting starts and one hour before classes begin. As he hauls his bag out of the backseat, he spots Zayn on the opposite side lugging a box full of office supplies and a stack of updated textbooks.

            “I knew the world’s existed for eons, Zayn, but I thought the cavemen invented something somewhere in there to help roll that stuff along for you,” Louis shouts, and receives the middle finger in return. He grins. Typical Zayn, still probably hung-over yet stylish as ever with his perfect hair and coordinated military-chic look. Louis has yet to understand how he pulls that off. 

            “I’m not ready for this,” Zayn grumbles as he approaches the main doors of the school. “Every year I say I’m going to do this when I’m sober and stuff but it never happens.” Louis holds the door open for him, and Zayn grunts in appreciation.

            “I can tell you’re mastering your caveman speech for the first unit,” Louis quips as he follows Zayn down the hall to their classrooms. Luckily for him, he stays on the first floor, but Zayn has to find some way to drag all of his stuff up a flight of stairs to his room on the second story. When the rooms had been given away in their second year of teaching, Louis warned him that although they were roomier, they would be a pain in the ass. Zayn ignored him, and look where he is now.

            “I tell you every year, we start at the Renaissance, you noob,” Zayn drawls in response, giving a few extra huffs while he shifts the weight of his boxes from one knee to another. “I keep forgetting how heavy six hundred years of history is.”

            Louis rolls his eyes. “Hey, I start from somewhere way back in the Neanderthal era. Wanna talk about heavy? Try two millennia or so.” He follows Zayn to the end of the hall, where his classroom sits and the stairs upwards are located.

            Zayn turns around to face him, nearly dropping several textbooks. “You know, the longer we talk, the longer I have to carry this and the more irritated I’m going to become.”

            “You could totally just have kept walking and ignored me,” Louis huffs dramatically, butting out his lower lip for emphasis. Zayn glares at him.

            “I could have, except I have that favor you owe me from the staff meeting three months ago.” Louis gawks, slightly stunned that Zayn even remembered. “I’d like to call it in now.”

            Louis stamps his foot. “Zayn, you have to give me some notice. Plus, it wasn’t even that big of a deal, I just—”

            “Ate some bad seafood and had to go home to rest while you were really off catching a plane to the south of France with Stan?” Zayn interrupts. They both freeze at the last part. Louis looks down at his feet, and Zayn bites his lower lip.

            “’M sorry, I wasn’t thinking,” Zayn says, softening. Louis shrugs.

            “Eh, not the end of the world. ‘S not your fault, anyway.” Zayn nods awkwardly. Louis walks around him and pulls the door open. “I think I have a cart somewhere in the back where I keep the extra art supplies.”

            Zayn grins. “Louis Tomlinson, you are a saint,” he crows, and wobbles his way into Louis’ classroom. Louis shakes his head teasingly and follows behind him.

            After they’ve successfully loaded Zayn’s piles of crap, as Louis calls it, onto the cart, the two manage to shove it down to the elevator, where they cram themselves and the boxes inside. Even though it means Louis has to wedge himself between the cart and the wall of the elevator, it works, and they escape unscathed.

            The two round the corner, and bump smack into a blond man carrying a mug of coffee. Before anyone can do anything, the scalding liquid is all down the man’s shirt, turning the ironed blue material into a brown-soaked mess.

            “I am _so_ sorry,” Louis half-gasps, half-whispers, looking frantically for something with which to clean up the coffee. The man laughs.

            “Not at all, mate! I kind of like it, actually. Looks a bit like Italy, if you squint your eyes and tilt your head to the side a little.” Zayn has by this point managed to procure some paper towels and is mopping up what’s on the floor.

            “We’re really really sorry, Mister…?” Louis repeats, before remembering he has no idea who this person is.

            “Horan. Call me Niall, though.” Niall extends a slightly damp hand, which Louis shakes apologetically.

            Zayn straightens up from wiping the floor clean. “Wait, are you the replacement UK History teacher?” Niall nods.

            “That’s me. Straight out of uni, I am. Always wanted to do this sort of thing, and here I am! Figured I needed a bit of excitement my first day on the job.” Louis winces slightly, remembering his own monologue about how conflicted he feels about his own position.

            “I’m Louis Tomlinson,” he responds, before he gets too depressed. “I teach art history on the first floor. That’s Zayn Malik, he’s in charge of World History.” Zayn waves from the water fountains, where he’s wetting one of the paper towels. “What period do you have lunch?”

            Niall pulls out a browned schedule from his breast pocket and frowns at the print. “Uh…I think I have it fifth? I have a prep third, and I think one tenth too.”

            “Sweet!” Louis grins. “Come have lunch with Zayn and I. We eat fifth, over in the teacher’s lounge or in my classroom, since it’s the biggest.” At once, Zayn approaches, seemingly out of nowhere, and starts dabbing at Niall’s shirt.

            “I have a prep third period too,” he gushes. “I could show you around if you’d like.” _Poor Niall_ , Louis thinks. _He has no idea how much he is about to be obsessed over_.

            He grins. “That’d be great! I have no idea where half the stuff in this school is.” Zayn beams like a third grader given a gold star for doing their maths homework perfectly. Louis shakes his head knowingly, aware of the star-struck loon Zayn Malik becomes every time he falls in love with a boy.

            The first time it was Nick, then that older guy Simon who creeped Louis out a little bit, and then it was even Louis before they realized they were much better off as friends and stayed that way. Since then, Louis has seen countless guys become the object of Zayn’s ridiculous and slightly illegal obsessions, and has also seen his heart get smashed to bits when those guys rejected him. It hurts, and he knows it must hurt Zayn too, but for whatever reason Zayn just keeps on doing it.

            After bidding farewell to the slightly overwhelmed Niall and the extremely overeager Zayn, still trying to clean up the remnants of the coffee disaster, Louis takes the elevator back to the first floor. Stepping out, he sees Liam making his way down the hall, chatting pleasantly with nearly every person he meets along the way.

            Louis cannot understand how much happiness fits inside of the entity that is Liam Payne. It’s certainly not physically possible to be that sweet that much of the time, but somehow Liam is always a giant ray of impossible, ridiculous, and slightly annoying sunshine. Plus, he always looks so adult and so childlike at the same time, with his dapper suit and coordinated tie in conjunction with his Toy Story posters decorating his classroom in foreign languages.

            “Recovered from last night, Tomlinson?” Liam asks, slowing to talk to Louis. He laughs in return.

            “Yeah, except someone left a smoldering cigarette butt on my counter that woke me up at four thinking my flat was on fire.” It’s Liam’s turn to laugh.

            “That’s what happens when you have a bunch of twenty-somethings over the night before their jobs start back up. Things go down.” The two of them walk to the staff meeting, which is over on the other side of the building. “Where’s Zayn?”

            Louis rolls his eyes. “Flirting with the new UK History teacher.” Liam groans.

            “Does this mean we’re going to have another obsession?” Louis nods forlornly. “Great.”

            “Yep. I know. I’m sure you’ll meet him, I invited him to have lunch with us fifth,” Louis puts in as they head down another hall. “He seems nice enough, fresh out of uni.”

            Liam smiles. “I hope I get to work with him at some point for Parliamentary Studies.” Liam teaches the classes on government; both a higher level course on the interactions of the three branches and an on-level class geared more towards current events and politics.

            “I’m sure he’s going to need a lot of help,” Louis adds as they enter the meeting room. “He’s so new he probably doesn’t know how to work those old projector things we have.”

            They sit down together in the middle of the room, where the rest of the staff has gathered. Like always, they sit and chat politely with the rest of the history department (Miss Peazer, the Asian Studies specialist, Ms. Edwards, the Sociology teacher, and Miss Calder, the US History and culture instructor as well as Louis’ on-again off-again arch-nemesis). Just as things are about to hit a rough patch, Zayn and Niall walk in, Niall in a relatively dry shirt with hints of the coffee mess that populated it earlier.

            Louis nearly has to help Zayn sit down he’s so far gone with his Niall obsession, and after introducing Liam, has to help his friend keep from smoothing the wrinkles on Niall’s dress pants for him. Which are on his thighs. This is going to be an issue.

            He breathes a sigh of relief as the principal takes the front of the room to address the staff and welcome them to the start of a new school year. Louis half-listens to the routine talk of procedures, union dues, and updates to staff parking passes. He’s heard it a lot, and his mind isn’t in the right state for this sort of thing.

            His attention is drawn to the sudden opening of the door and its hasty closing, accompanied by the arrival of someone whom Louis can’t quite make out. When he can, Louis forgets how to breathe.

            He’s tall, lanky, with a head of curls that he keeps brushing out of his forehead. His eyes are like caverns, endless and staggering, and the forearms revealed by his pushed up shirt sleeves are blanketed in tattoos. His pants fit perfectly, hugging just the right curves, and falling perfectly over his—

            _Woah_ , Louis thinks. _This is a school. There are children. He’s somebody’s child. He’s somebody’s child. He’s somebody’s_ —

            “Who’s that?” Zayn asks in a loud whisper. Liam looks over to see tall-lanky-attractive-nice-butt-man walking quickly to a seat in the front of the room.

            “He’s the new European History teacher,” Liam answers. “He took over for that old crone who retired last year. She was a right nightmare.” The new teacher shifts in his seat, trying to keep himself collected while managing to pull his tie askew.

            “He looks younger than me,” Niall puts in, a comment that Zayn finds so incredibly hilarious he has to laugh out loud in the middle of a vital part of the principal’s speech and earn them all a death glare.

            They manage to get through the rest of the talk without incident, even though Louis can’t stop looking at the stranger in the front of the room. There’s something about him that throws everything he’s ever known off its axis, shakes his world upside down. He’s always assumed that the universe works a certain way, operates under the laws of people like Stan, but something about this new guy makes him reconsider all of that.

            Once the meeting is over, everyone gets up to head back to their classrooms. Before Louis can make his escape with the rest of his friends, however, he is summoned by the principal.

            “Mr. Tomlinson, welcome back,” the principal says agreeably. “I trust you’ve had a nice summer.” Louis gives a non-committal answer which earns an uncertain smile. “Well, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

            Louis can’t help himself from blushing and feeling faint as the new teacher walks over to see them. Is this some kind of a joke? A nightmare? Is he going to wake up and find that he’s just had a really bad dream and drunk too much Cognac?

            “This is Mr. Harry Styles, he’s our new European History teacher.” The new guy—now Harry Styles, extends his hand.

            “How ‘dya do,” he answers shyly, and Louis just shakes it without being able to say anything past the bile in his throat.

            “Mr. Styles is working on a pilot program for our curriculum. As part of the new standards set by Parliament, we must integrate different disciplines into the history process,” the principal explains. He gestures to Louis. “Mr. Tomlinson here is our resident art history teacher, and he’ll be helping you add more about the art of each time period into your classroom teaching.”

            Maybe this year really is going to suck after all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for all of the reads and kudos!! please comment and share :)
> 
> song mentioned is "today" by joshua radin

“I cannot believe this is happening to me. I mean, I spend four years putting my own ass on the line to actually turn this class into something, and _he_ just comes in here and expects help? From me, of all people. There are plenty of other people who know things about art, and I’m sure they could do something. Don’t they have books on that? Can’t he just buy something from some cow at a bookshop or—”

            “Louis, stop pacing, you’re making me dizzy,” Liam moans through a mouthful of tuna sandwich. Louis realizes he’s been walking back and forth across the same line for the entirety of his rant, which has taken up the majority of lunch. His kale and anchovy salad sits uneaten on his desk. To be fair, it probably would be sitting there uneaten even if he were not ranting, because nobody chooses kale and anchovy salad unless they’re crazy or sleep-deprived. Sadly he is both.

            “Don’t you think you’re over-thinking this?” Niall asks, stabbing at some salad. “I mean, it’s not like he’s out to get you. I know that I’d want help integrating stuff, just starting and all.” Zayn nods eagerly at this.

            “Yeah, what Niall said,” Zayn adds before dipping some pita chips in hummus. Louis rolls his eyes. Of course it’s what Niall said. Niall could say that unicorns invented the lightbulb and Zayn would just nod and smile. 

            “Well, I’m just being serious. I’m sure you’d be perfectly capable of opening up one of those art history books and doing a little digging on British art,” Louis retorts, pointing to Niall. To his distress, Niall shakes his head and chews on a cranberry.

            “Nah, I mean, it may just be ‘cause I’m all new and wide-eyed, but I’d have no bloody idea what to do if someone told me that,” he adds. Zayn looks at Louis with a patronizing glare, and Louis throws up his hands in surrender.

            “Okay, fine,” he concedes. “But,” he adds, pointing a finger at the group, “don’t expect me to make this easy. Styles is going to need to hold up his end. I’m not holding his hand through this whole thing, and he’d better learn quick.” Realizing no one is paying attention, he adds “And can I have some crisps? I’m starving.”

 

* * * * *

            The rest of the day goes by without incident. Out of the seven hours in the day, Louis teaches for four of them and has a study hall for one. It’s nice because even though he traded his prep period for it, he gets paid extra to do the exact same work. His kids are nice, even if they are very deer-in-headlights at this point. He can tell he’s going to like his second hour group, and his sixth hour is going to be a handful, but he knows how to break them. By this point, he’s become a pro at this.

            When his seventh hour group rolls around, Louis’ mastered his routine. Once everyone has taken a seat and the final bell has rung, he takes roll and then perches on the edge of his desk. From his computer, he pulls up a picture of the Mona Lisa.

            “Anybody know what this is?” he asks. Of course, everyone raises their hands. He switches to a slide of one of Da Vinci’s lesser known works, _The Virgin And Child with St. Anne_. “How about this one?” No one responds. Louis laughs. “Good,” he says, swinging his legs off of his desk.

            “Those are both works of Leonardo da Vinci, arguably the second most important artist of the Renaissance. Michelangelo was truly the Renaissance’s greatest product, but da Vinci is certainly up there. Any guesses as to what purpose the Mona Lisa serves?”

            After fielding a couple of incorrect answers, Louis stops in front of the slide with her smiling face. “None. She wasn’t painted for some rich patron, wasn’t intended for some grand religious purpose, and she wasn’t displayed in a cathedral. In fact, the painting is quite small. About the size of your average piece of paper, probably a bit smaller. It’s been a few years since I’ve been to see it.”

            “Point is, art isn’t always about serving a defined purpose. Sure, sometimes it’s done for money, or for a pope or a king, but not always. More often than not, it’s about what the painter wants to express. If he or she wants to bring something to life, they can put brush to canvas or pencil to paper or chisel to marble and make it happen. Just like that, they’ve made something real, and tangible. They have proof that this thought existed in their mind. It becomes entirely theirs.”

            At this point, he turns to face his students straight on. “I know a lot of you don’t really care about art history. You’re just waiting to fill your fourth or fifth year credits, which I get. But if I do nothing else this year, if I teach you no paintings, I want you to understand why art exists. Art is the product of the human soul. It exists because we need to create, and because we as people want to leave our mark on the world. I think that’s beautiful, don’t you?”

            It’s then that he notices Harry, Harry Styles, standing in the doorway, leaning against the side. He looks so…sexy. Louis blushes, slightly ashamed at his high school-esque behavior. How the hell did he let himself get wrapped up in this so quickly? And so soon after Stan…

            The thought of Stan sends him crashing back to Earth. “Um, so on that note, you guys can just start working on your intro sheets. Tell me about yourselves, so I can get to know you a little better.” He eyes the group of popular girls sitting at the same table on the right. “Maybe I can figure out how to get you guys to like me? Get inside of your heads a little.” He gets half a chuckle out of that, and he takes it, handing out the papers and then walking over to talk to Harry. No, Mr. Styles. Mr. Harry Styles. Mr. Louis Styles. Mr. Harry Tomlins—

            _Stop, Louis. This is ridiculous._ Louis works to wipe out the slightly disturbing cacophony of voices clambering for attention inside of his head and clears his throat awkwardly. “Um, hi,” is what comes out, much more awkwardly than he intended it to.

            “Oops,” Harry responds, and he is fumbling a textbook and it slides off the counter and lands on his foot and suddenly Harry is nearly screaming curses and everyone’s staring at him and things are just really, really uncomfortable.

            “Keep forgetting I’m a teacher now,” Harry says after the students have left. Louis let him ice his foot with his kale and anchovy salad. At least it’s getting some use. “I mean, I’ve just got out of uni, and I keep expecting to be able to just stay up ‘til all hours of the night and drink and party and all that.”

            Louis half-heartedly laughs as he straightens up his room, putting chairs on top of the art tables. “You can still do that, you know.”

            “Yeah, but I have a job. And responsibilities.” Harry scrunches up his nose, adding, “And taxes.” Louis actually laughs at that one.

            “Welcome to adulthood, Mr. Styles.” He joins Harry at one of the tables, Harry sitting on one chair with his foot on top of another directly in front of him. He grins from underneath his mess of curls.

            “You can call me Harry, you know. I’m younger than you.” Louis feigns insult, and gets a mortified reaction from Harry. “I didn’t mean it like that, I—”

            “No, I’m not offended,” Louis laughs, brushing it off. This feels easy, like lemonade on a summer day or the patter of rain. Harry’s so genuine it’s more than slightly disarming. Louis can’t wear his emotions on his sleeve, hasn’t since before Stan, but Harry shows you his hand before he even knows what he’s got in it.

            “Anyway, I should be going,” Harry says, putting the Tupperware of salad back on the table and wincing as he shifts his frozen foot off the chair. “Got some papers to grade and a room to set up. Apparently things don’t hang themselves up.” He grins, broad and charming, and Louis can’t see anything but everything in front of him.

            As he’s heading out the door, he looks back to Louis. “See you around?” Louis nods, smiling shyly. Harry gives him a coy little wave and limps off. Like a fifties film character, Louis sinks into a chair with more than a hint of drama. Whoever made Harry Styles should be punished. And then forced to make several hundred photocopies.

            Before he can recover his wits, Zayn knocks on the door. “Can I?” he asks, but doesn’t wait for an answer, choosing instead to just walk confidently through the door and lie down on one of the tables. This is so routine, Louis doesn’t even ask any questions.

            “How was your first day?” Louis asks from his slumped position in his chair, and then immediately regrets it because Zayn is rambling about Niall, Niall, Niall, and Niall. Niall’s blond hair, Niall’s laugh, Niall’s obsession with yogurt, and did you know that Niall is a big fan of that ITV skating competition? Because he is, Niall is a big fan of that and therefore it is automatically worth watching.

            The one advantage of Zayn’s mindless droning is the time it makes for Louis to get lost in his head. It’s day one of school, and already he and his best friend are falling for the new guys. Even if it is in a dramatically different style. Emphasis on the dramatic part.

            He can’t help but keep chiding himself for this whole thing. After Stan, he swore he wouldn’t go back there again. He couldn’t get hurt, there was no way he’d ever open himself up to that type of thing ever again, and yet here he is, open and raw and bleeding and obsessed with this crazy kid who thinks he needs to come say hi and then just ruin Louis’ life.

            He sort of likes it, if he were being honest with himself. But he’s not.

            “I said, where do you think the nearest Nandos is?” Zayn interrupts his musings with a question he was apparently already supposed to have answered. He shakes his head to clear it, giving some non-committal response.

            He finally manages to get Zayn off of the art table and away from his classroom so he can start putting things away. He puts on iTunes radio and starts organizing the art supplies that have clearly been raided at multiple points over the summer.

            _Nothing to say, but there’s still time._

He recognizes this one. It’s the Joshua Radin one that Stan used to play him when they would lay in bed on Sundays and watch telly and eat pancakes shirtless and read the paper and talk about life.

_You’re the one I’ve been waiting for today._

The paints go in this drawer, the scissors in this one.

_Here comes the sun, it’s been beating more today._

Can’t think, shouldn’t think, won’t think. No thinking. Thinking just hurts, and Louis is done with pain. Numbness is at least tolerable.

_I sat beside you and became myself._

Suddenly Louis just sinks to the ground, tears stinging his face. He’s clutching that pair of scissors, and he drops the drawer with the oil paints, but nothing breaks, the scissors just land in the middle of the blues, doesn’t make a sound, and suddenly Louis is drowning in his fear and his sadness and his loneliness.

            He’s too old to be alone. He never dated in high school, never had any boyfriends in uni. He spent twenty-three years of his life waking up in a bed four sizes too big, rolling over and seeing pillows and blankets and every once in a while someone he had dragged home with him, or sometimes a note explaining why that someone he had dragged home with him was no longer there, and his heart was so broken that he wasn’t sure it could ever be put back together again.

            He manages to haul himself off of the floor, and puts on his sweatshirt he keeps in the bottom drawer of his desk. Desperate times call for desperate measures. He locks his classroom, makes his way to his car by the secret way he found his first year so he didn’t need to run into anybody on the way out, not when he’s been crying, and drives the whole way to the beach.

            The car keeps stalling, and it takes him an hour more than it should, but he gets there by eight. The moon hangs swollen and bright in the sky, and it’s bright enough that Louis can park his car on the edge of the beach and break out the bottle of vodka he bought on the way and sit on the hood and drink and stare at the ocean.

            Something about the sea is so calming to him, how it speaks in silence and whispers. The idea of being governed by something higher and greater than himself, the moon controlling the ebb and flow of the water, lapping gently at the shore, is soothing to Louis. The vodka doesn’t hurt.

            Normally things don’t get this bad until November, sometimes if he’s lucky early December. It was usually arguments with Stan, things he felt he couldn’t repair, or crushes he had that went unanswered that drove him to drink alone on the beach.

            If he were stronger, he thinks he would like the walk out into the water and become one with the waves. But he knows the water’s cold, and he’s got Zayn and Liam, and the vodka is a great depressant, so he just sits on top of his car wrapped in an oversized and mysteriously stained sweatshirt talking with the stars.

            He wonders if Stan is looking at these same stars. Stan and whoever. Or Harry. Did Harry look at the stars? Did he read their messages, speak their language?

            Tongue thick with sleep and vodka, he gets back inside the car and stares at the steering wheel for a while. It stares back at him. Louis decides to have a staring contest with the steering wheel, and loses.

            The ride back is long and quiet. The moon doesn’t say too much.

            After he gets inside his apartment and collapses into bed, he falls into a fitful and vodka-heavy sleep. He dreams of cave paintings and da Vinci and Harry.

            Just like he expected, the next morning is hell. His head is throbbing and, he’s sure, is set to explode any minute. He can barely see straight, and he feels so tired he has trouble getting out of bed.

            He starts the kettle and goes to take a shower. Hot water usually does the trick for a hangover. Of course, two days in a row of heavy drinking and work isn’t something he regularly does, so he’s not exactly sure how this will work out.

            Toweling his hair dry, he makes his way to the kitchen with his hands clapped over his ears to prevent his head from blowing up at the shrieking of the tea kettle. With some difficulty he manages to pour himself a cuppa and puts on a haphazard yet somehow coordinated outfit while he waits for it to steam.

            He pours the rest into a mug and sets off for work. The day goes by, he comes home with a box of Chinese takeaway and watches Eastenders while eating sweet and sour pork and grading papers.

            Putting one of the introductory assignments aside, he looks up from his chopsticks to see Jean getting ready to leave Albert Square with Ollie. _Spoiled little bitch_ , he thinks to himself. _All she does is whine, and look where it’s gotten her._

            As Jean’s car drives off with the theme music playing in the background, he shuts the TV off to sit in the silence. Putting his red pen and food down, he leans back into the couch and draws his feet up. Everything feels empty.

            When he was a kid, Louis always pictured that by this point in his life, he’d be settled. And he is, to a degree. He has a steady job, and a routine, and friends, and a regular drinking spot. He even has a retirement account.

            But that goddamn bed. The one Stan bought for their six month anniversary because Louis was always complaining about how small his mattress was for the two of them, since Stan always liked staying at his place. It’s made for two people, and it’s currently occupied by Louis and a host of bad memories.

            Sometimes he sleeps on the couch instead of in the bed. It feels more comfortable. He thinks tonight will be one of those nights. Pulling a blanket he snagged from his mum’s house a while before holiday last year up around his waist and settling in.

            In some ways, the school year is the best thing for him. Nothing like a good dose of routine to keep his mind off of the monotony of his own life. He drifts off to sleep, waltzing between dream and nightmare, never feeling sure on the tightrope he walks along.

            He thanks the powers that be that the next day is Friday, and as he turns off his phone alarm, he manages to get himself presentable for work fairly rapidly.

            “Ready for our first outing of the year?” Liam calls across the parking lot after Louis pulls in. He grins, giving his friend a thumbs-up. Those pub trips are a highlight of every work week, and he especially needs it now.

            Louis counts down the hours it takes to get through the day, and they go surprisingly fast. Lunch comes sooner than he expected, and he’s thrown off guard when Niall, Zayn, and Liam come trooping into his classroom.

            By this point, Louis’ learned, and unpacks his arugula and feta salad from the fridge. At least this is palatable.

            “So where are we off to tonight, lads?” Zayn asks, picking the crusts off his ham and cheese sandwich. Liam shrugs ambivalently.

            “I don’t really care. We’ve pretty much been to every pub in a thirty kilometer radius, so it doesn’t matter match to me.”

            Niall says something through a mouthful of crisps, and has to awkwardly chew so he can repeat it in a comprehensible way.

            “Have you ever been to The Dive?” Louis, Zayn, and Liam exchange looks.

            “Yeah, we’ve been to dives before, believe me…” Liam starts, but Niall shakes his head.

            “No, the name of the place is The Dive. Like that’s the pub’s name, you know?” Zayn pretends to know what Niall’s talking about but Louis shrugs.

            “Well, it’s someplace we’ve clearly never been before, so I ‘spose it’s worth a shot,” he says, doing half spins in his chair. Zayn, of course, agrees, and Liam nods excitedly. Niall grins.

            “You guys are gonna love it, I swear,” he says as he shoves his face full of crisps again. Louis rolls his eyes. Zayn really knows how to pick ‘em.

 

****

 

            “Let’s go already! I’m starving,” Louis shouts from the parking lot. Niall and Zayn are already on their way over to the new place (in the same car, a topic which Louis was assaulted with at least twelve million times during free period) and he’s waiting on Liam to haul God-knows-what to his beat-up sedan.

            Lo and behold, Liam emerges from the main entrance carrying a large assortment of rolled maps. Louis cocks an eyebrow.

            “No one needs maps in government,” Liam explains, tossing them with a sigh into the back of his car. “I think everyone knows where Parliament is.”

            Louis grins teasingly. “Oh, you’d be surprised, Mr. Payne. Teach me, teach me hard!”

            Liam smacks him on the arm. “You’re just as bad as they are, Lou.”

            He grins cockily. “Wanna treat me that way?” The whole rest of the car ride to the pub is spent that way, Louis mocking the obsessive female students Liam has and Liam blushing and swatting at Louis in return. It feels like old times, and Louis likes that.

            Pulling up at The Dive and parking out front, they meet Niall and Zayn standing outside against the wall.

            “I swear, this is an exact match to his complexion,” Zayn says, comparing a tag of graffiti to Niall’s mortified face. “They should make a make-up, or a crayon, in this color. It’d be my absolute favorite.” The two let Zayn rant about Niall’s facial color all the way inside, where all of them are carded except for Louis.

            “Are you fucking kidding me?” Louis nearly screams when he’s waved in. “How old do you think I am? How old do I fucking look? Tell me the truth, you dumb—”

            “Okay, think this conversation’s over,” Liam concludes, dragging Louis away from the irritated bouncer.

            Louis fumes. “I think I need a drink,” he growls, stalking over the bar before Liam can stop him. The bartender is cleaning some shot glasses and testing the various taps. “Excuse me, can I have a cranberry martini on the rocks, no olive?”

            “A little girly for such a manly man, don’t you think?”

            The voice makes Louis stop in his tracks. Oh God. Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God no. The bartender cannot be Harry Styles.

            “Hey Lou,” Harry says from behind the bar, grinning cheekily at him.

            Louis really needs a drink now. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you thank you THANK YOU for all the reads!!! I love seeing the number jump :D 
> 
> Song is "Back To Basics" by Shape:UK

             Louis still can’t believe his misfortune. To seriously wind up having drinks with the bartender, especially when that bartender is Harry Styles? Un-freaking-real.

            “Can I get you another?” Harry asks, wiping down the counter where Louis sits lazily spinning on a barstool. He shakes his head, pushing his empty glass towards the back of the counter.

            “Think I’ve had enough,” he mumbles, crossing his arms across the bar. Harry stops his cleaning and looks at him with concern.

            “You okay? You look a little rough around the edges.” Louis glares at him, but softens when he sees his true empathy. He shrugs, spinning a napkin around in circles on the stained wood surface.

            “Dunno. Long week, that’s all.” Harry nods without saying anything and moves on to wiping down taps. It’s only ten or so in the evening, but the bar is still pretty empty. Some 10,000 Maniacs song is playing in the background, one Louis’ mom used to put on when it was just the two of them and he would stand on her feet and they’d waltz around the flat like they were at Cinderella’s royal ball.

            “So how long’ve you been working here?” Louis asks, to keep himself from getting too depressed. Harry shrugs and wrings out his cloth.

            “Oh, about two months or so,” he answers, snagging a pretzel from the bowl in front of Louis. “Good to get some extra cash flow.” Louis nods in that awkward way he does where he’s being held back by the silence inside his own head but can’t seem to shake it out. Bless Harry, he either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

            “Can I ask you something?” Harry asks, not stopping from his work. Louis looks surprised, then alarmed, but settles for a stammering “Yeah, I guess so”.

            Harry sets the cloth down and puts the spray bottle of cleaner back below the sink, laying his hands down flat on the counter. Louis notices they’re big. Oh God. He has big hands. Lord help him if he ever gets the image of Harry wrapping those big hands around his-

            “What the hell am I supposed to do about this art stuff?” Louis is startled by the brusqueness of Harry’s question, but he welcomes its distraction.

            “What do you mean?” Harry shrugs in frustration, running one hand through his curls. Louis could scream. Or die. Maybe he’s already done both.

            “It’s just, I don’t know the first thing about any art outside of like…I don’t know, da Vinci and some Picasso and I guess a Monet or two and I legitimately have to start teaching my kids on Monday all about Brughel and Van Eyck and I don’t know where to even start.” Harry says this all in one breath, and when he gets to the end he exhales dramatically.

            Louis can’t help but laugh. “I think I can help you with that. Renaissance art is pretty basic, mostly cause it’s new and there hasn’t been quite a lot of development with it.”

            So Louis sits at the bar and Harry waits on customers and Louis tells him about all the paintings and art trends of Europe during the Renaissance and Harry just kind of nods and asks him questions when he has them and even takes out his notepad he keeps for writing down particularly large tabs and jots down quick notes and important trends and it works, like a machine, the two of them just flowing like water.

            Taking a break while Harry drops some shots off at a faraway table, Louis spots Zayn and Niall over at the pool table and Liam over in the middle of the dance floor. Liam always liked a good disco, even when they were in their first year. For whatever reason, Liam thinks he’s good at dancing when he really isn’t, and something about that innocent charm makes him really attractive to girls. So of course, Liam’s currently floating in the middle of a pool of young ladies dancing to Shapeshifters and they’re googly-eyed over him. Typical straight men. They have it so easy.

            He hears strong laughter over from the corner, and turns to see Harry standing with an empty tray at a table of ladies in particularly short tube dresses. They keep shoving their boobs further down into the silky black fabric and saying things that make Harry crack up, and then they giggle and whisper to each other and he’s so charming and it just makes Louis so depressed.

            He never actually asked Harry about his sexuality, considering they’ve only known each other for about three days, but he also didn’t want to hear the inevitable answer.

            Against his better judgment, he tips back another shot Harry left laying out and goes to join Liam on the dance floor.

            _Let’s get back to basics, go back._

It’s loud and everyone’s sweaty and it just feels good to forget about everything for a few minutes and be taken for a ride. Being in the center of the mass means Louis can’t help but move all the time, and it’s just what he needs.

            “Sorry, did you drop this?”

            Louis does a quick glance behind to see a dazzling man looking straight at him, holding a wallet. He’s tall, dark black hair and deep blue eyes. It’s a bit much for him to take in, but it seems to be just what Louis needs on a night where he’s trying desperately not to think about Harry.

            “No, sorry, ‘s not mine,” Louis shouts over the thudding base. The man grimaces.

            “It’s gotta be someone’s around here. Know where the bartender is?”

            So of course, Louis is led straight back to Harry, who’s back at the bar refilling drinks and taking orders, but he stops and grins once he sees Lou.

            “Hey, Tommo, what’s—” His face falls upon seeing this tall-dark-handsome-stranger standing next to Louis. “Um, I mean, can I help you?”

            “Name’s Nicholas Grimshaw,” the man says, extending his hand. “I’m the assistant DJ tonight, helping out the main guy with his mixes and all. Found this on the dance floor when I was going to get some air.” He holds out the wallet and Harry takes it from him.

            “No license?” he asks. Nicholas shakes his head.

            “Not that I could see.” Harry shrugs and sticks it underneath the counter and then, in the same motion, grabs four empty beer glasses and sticks them in the sink.

            “Well, I’ll keep it here then, and see if anyone wants to claim it,” he says, turning away in a gesture obviously meant to squash the conversation. Louis tries to engage Harry, but he refuses, so Louis takes Nicholas and walks away from the bar.

            “Sorry about him, he’s usually a lot sweeter than that,” he half shouts apologetically over the drone of conversation and the music. Nicholas shakes his head.

            “Not a problem. He was obviously busy, I’m not offended or anything.” Louis sighs and runs a hair through his hair.

            “Listen, Mr. ….?”

            “Call me Nick,” he says, adjusting his leather jacket. Leather. Jacket. Louis has never seen a leather jacket up close before. It looks expensive. And leathery. He wonders if Nick takes it home and just smells it.

            “Nick,” he says hurriedly to take his mind off the awkwardness. “I’m really sorry, but I’ve gotta go round up my mates and get outta here. It’s been a long week and I think I need some quality time sleeping.”

            Nick nods, smiling. Louis likes his smile, it seems genuine. “Yeah, not a problem. I’ve got to get back to work anyway.” He pats Louis on the shoulder, not in a patronizing way but in a sweet nostalgic way, and Louis feels lightning course up and down his arm. “Nice to meet you…?”

            Louis realizes he’s never introduced himself. “Oh, Louis. Louis Tomlinson. But you can just call me Louis. Or Lou. Or Tommo. Or—”

            Nick laughs, and the notes fall like summer rain on Louis’ sweaty palms. “See you around, Louis.” With that, he heads back into the throng of people and is swallowed by the mass of bodies writhing as one on the tiny dance floor.

            Louis watches him go and feels a sudden pang of something he hasn’t felt in a long time. Regret? Sadness? Maybe both, he’s not exactly sure. Either way it’s uncomfortable, and he just wants to get home.

            Getting home, unfortunately, means rounding up a shitfaced Niall, an angry drunk Zayn, and a sufficiently estrogen-doused Liam, keeping them in one place while calling a taxi, waiting for said taxi, and then getting everyone inside. Drunk people are like kindergarteners: if they don’t hold hands, you will lose them.

            Harry takes a break from work to see Louis, bringing his pad of art questions like he wants to keep talking. He looks eager, but once he sees that Louis is putting his cardigan on his face falls again. Louis hates that, doesn’t ever want Harry’s face to look that sad, least of all because of him.

            “Leaving already?” he asks in this slightly pitiful voice that makes Louis’ heart snap in half. He glances past him to the DJ booth where Nick gives him a little wave.

            “Um, yeah,” Louis answers hesitantly, not breaking eye contact with Nick until Niall tries to run away to the bar for more shots. “These three are a little tuckered out from their time at the playground.”

            Harry laughs. “Hey, as long as you had fun.” Louis shifts uncomfortably and clears his throat a little.

            “Yeah, yeah, definitely,” he mumbles awkwardly. He realizes Nick is still staring at him.

“I’m just tired and I think I could do with some rest.” Harry nods like a sad dog.

            “Gotcha.” He brightens up a little bit, adding, “I really liked the art stuff you showed me. I think I’ve got a good handle on it now.”

            Louis smiles a little. “Good, good. It’s not that bad, you seemed to understand it, especially the difference between the Northern and Southern styles.”

            They both kind of stand there awkwardly, not sure of what to do next. It’s Harry who makes the first move, shaking his head a bit to clear his curls out of his eyes and brushing them back with his free hand.

            “We should do this again sometime,” he says, just softly enough that it melts onto Louis and drowns him in its possibility.

            Louis nods, unable to choke anything coherent past the ball of emotion knotted up in his throat. “Yeah,” he finally manages. “We should.”

            As he says goodbye to Harry and helps shepherd the others out of the club, he can’t help but notice Nick is still looking at him, waiting for a proper goodbye. Louis isn’t sure he wants to give him one, but he’s not sure he doesn’t want to either.

 

* * * *

 

            “Name, date, hour at the top please,” Louis says, handing out the test papers. “Remember, this is twenty multiple choice questions and twenty fill-in responses.” The group shifts anxiously, trying to go over last minute details of pieces and time periods in their heads before they get their exams.

            “Any questions?” he asks as he passes out the last of the lined paper. “You get one free question as a class, so choose wisely. First person to ask and get a majority vote gets their question answered.” They buzz with excitement. Louis likes that part, getting to help the kids out with something. It makes everyone’s lives a bit easier.

            He’s sitting at his desk grading papers while making sure none of them try to cheat when Harry walks in. He bursts in the door like he wants to shout something and then realizes what’s happening and does this sort of embarrassed withdrawal that makes Louis chuckle.

            “Hi Mr. Styles!” One of the girls whispers, and a few others follow. Louis rolls his eyes and stands up to start his pacing routine.

            “Okay, everyone say hello to Mr. Styles,” he instructs, and watches as Harry blushes while his class greets him. Harry waves back shyly and then awkwardly makes his way over to Louis.

            “Question,” he whispers. Louis nods to encourage him, without taking his eyes off of the kids at their testing seats. Harry shifts his weight and pulls out a packet he’s drawn up of Renaissance art.

            “Would you consider this—”

            “Mr. Tomlinson?” one of the boys asks, his hand in the air. “I’ve got a question.” The class buzzes with excitement.

            “Alright, settle down, everyone gets to vote. Go on, ask the question,” Louis says as Harry stands, confused.

            “Was Hatshepsut considered part of the New Kingdom before she started the Amarna Period or was she solely in Amarna?” he asks. Everyone whispers excitedly, and Louis makes his way to the board.

            “All in favor of an answer?” he asks, but before he can tally the votes, Harry jumps in, walking over to look at the boy’s test.

            “First off,” he says in a tone that reminds Louis of his own mother, soothing but still meant to teach, “it was Akhenaton who started the Amarna Period, remember? He moved the capital of Egypt to Thebes and changed the religion to monotheism. He was married to Nefertiti.” The boy nods, like he’s suddenly remembering it all.

            “In terms of your question,” Harry continues, pointing at the picture, Hatshepsut was a Pharaoh of Middle to New Kingdom, although it’d probably be better to list her as a New Kingdom pharaoh. Remember, her burial site is cut out of limestone near a mountain, not like the pyramids of the Old Kingdom.” The class erupts into talking, everyone scribbling down what they can remember and asking Harry to repeat what they can’t.

            Louis is pissed, if he were being frank. Who does Harry think he is, stepping into his room in the middle of his test and disrupting his entire system for question answering? A vote needed to be taken, and Harry Styles had just disrupted democracy. This would not stand.

            “Look, Harry,” Louis said loudly, butting into one of the side conversations he was having with a fifth year named Andie. “I appreciate your willingness to help, but we only have the one-question-one-vote system involving our tests, and nobody got to vote on whether they want the question answered or not.”

            Harry reddens, deep and flushed, and suddenly Louis is the one feeling chastised, like he just kicked a puppy or said a baby was ugly.

            “Oh,” he squeaks, “I’m sorry, I had no idea what I was doing!” Louis gives an apology for Harry’s apology and suddenly they’re caught in this endless cycle of embarrassment they can’t get out of. Finally one of the students just says “Can you two just get over being sorry and be quiet?”

            After the tests are collected, Louis sits down with Harry in the empty classroom.

            “So what was your question you had again?” Louis asks, stacking the test papers up neatly and placing them on top of the others from previous hours. Harry scans his notes, flipping through pages and talking to himself.

            “Oh, Albert Durher?” he asked. “What was so great about him?”

            And so they spend the next two hours, past the late period and through an hour after they’ve been dismissed talking about art and different societies and cultures and paintings and Louis is surprised to find out that Harry actually knows quite a good deal about art history, even if it’s not all European.

            “So,” Harry says after they’ve exhausted most other avenues of talking. “You and Nick, huh?” Louis backpedals frantically. This is so not good.

            “No no no,” he stammers, “Nothing like that at all, that’s not a thing.” Harry smiles knowingly.

            “You know that wallet he turned in?” he asks. Louis nods expectantly. “It did have a license in it. His. He was trying to pick you up, you know.” Louis is aghast. Really? Was Nick that unabashedly shameless that he would pretend Louis dropped a wallet he knew perfectly well was his just to take him home?

            “No, I had no idea,” he chokes out. Harry grins. “He’s clearly better at this whole relationship dating thing than I am.”

            “I’d dispute that,” Harry says, spinning a pencil around on the table and watching where the point lands. “I think you know exactly what you’re doing.”

            Louis scoffs. “Please, I haven’t had a really good relationship since—” and suddenly he’s choking on memories and he can’t breathe and it washes over him like a wave and he’s lost inside of them and they’re bitter and sweet and taste like sweat and passion and tears and it’s too much for him to handle and he has to ball his fists to keep from crying.

            Harry doesn’t press it, bless his soul. He just keeps spinning the pencil, and casually adds, “I haven’t ever had a really good relationship.”

            Louis softens, looking at him, but Harry avoids eye contact. “Why?”

            Harry shrugs. “Dunno. Always been sort of a dunce when it comes to that sort of thing. I never really know how to act around that kind of thing.”

            “Have you had any girlfriends?” Louis asks pointedly.

            After a long pause, Harry answers “A few” and Louis’ heart sinks into his stomach. Great. Just like he thought. Harry was never ever meant to—

            “And a few boyfriends too,” he finishes softly, and Louis’ heart stops.

            “Oh?” he answers casually, but inside he’s screaming and dancing and possibly conjuring up images of Harry having boyfriends because that is now a real thing.

            Harry nods, slightly uncomfortably. “It’s always been easier, finding girls. They kinda don’t care about the bisexual thing. Guys are a different story, they’re always afraid they’re gonna get picked off or something.”

            Louis nods, and Harry suddenly stands up. “So yeah, just, good luck with Nick and all that. Because I know he deserves you and he’s a really good person and all that stuff. I just don’t think you really deserve him, I mean, I’ve only known you for like two weeks, but you’re really genuine and emotional and you can do so much better than that. I just don’t think you have to settle for him just because of whatever, I mean, not really anyway. Nick’s cool, I guess, but I…”

            He pauses, and Louis can’t breathe.

            “I just think there are other people out there for you,” Harry blurts out and dashes out the door, nearly knocking over a scale model of the Parthenon and a plaster paris model of Nike on his way.

            Louis is just alone, sitting at the tables with his tests and his grades and no Harry Styles. Worse, he thinks no Harry Styles is the worst feeling of all.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys like this! Songs mentioned are "Gotta Have You" by The Weepies and, of course, "Wonderwall" by Oasis. Thanks for the kudos, means a lot :)

The week of no Harry Styles is the worst week of Louis’ life. He would rather spend the next two months being forced to watch re-runs of Dawson’s Creek with Zayn or have his car explode than face the awkwardness he has with Harry.

            It’s not just that they don’t talk, it’s that they continue running into each other everywhere, making eye contact, stopping, speechless. Louis keeps getting lost inside Harry’s eyes, and his mouth hangs open awkwardly, but then one of them brushes past and keeps moving, leaving the other to stand in the middle of the hall staring after them.

            “Why hasn’t Mr. Styles stopped into class lately?” one of Louis students, Leigh-Anne, asks him at the beginning of class one day. Louis sighs.

            “Dunno, probably just has other stuff to do,” he responds, and quickly launches into his discussion of Archaic Greek art. To make matters worse, the test on Egyptian art went quite poorly; close to a third of his students got C’s or lower. Things only got harder, and Louis wasn’t sure he (or they) were up for the pressure.

            By Wednesday, Louis has basically blockaded himself inside of his classroom, put on the radio, and spends his days grading papers or coming up with lesson plans. Staying at school gives him an excuse to not go home, which means he has less time to spend staring at the ceiling trying to fall asleep.

            He thinks it’s kind of stupid, actually. He’s not even dating Harry, and they’re not even really friends, but he feels like his heart’s been ripped still beating out of his chest. And it sucks. This is why he doesn’t get close to people, it hurts too much.

            There’s a knock on his door, and Louis rolls his eyes. It’s probably one of his fourth years wondering if they left their phone somewhere in the room, and the answer will inevitably be no, but they will still tear the room apart and he just can’t handle that right now.

            Padding over to the door, he unlocks it and swings it open with a disgruntled “What do you want?” but stops short. Standing in front of him is Niall, looking significantly panicked.

            “Louis, I’m in crisis mode here,” he blurts, pushing past Louis to get inside the classroom. Significantly unimpressed, Louis stands holding the door open for a few more seconds before adding a “I’m sure” and slamming it shut.

            “No, you really don’t understand,” Niall continues, frantically pacing across the tile floor, his loafers squeaking when he pivots. His tie is slightly (okay definitely) askew, and his shirt is half untucked, and if Louis didn’t know any better he’d think Niall just got out of  a closet after snogging Zayn.

            He laughs at his own joke, but clearly does so out loud because Niall throws his hands up and stops to stare at Louis.

            “This isn’t funny!” he nearly screams, and Louis nods.

            “Can you just explain what happened?” Louis asked, taking a seat on the counter against the far wall. Niall sighs and runs an agitated hand through his hair.

            “It’s Zayn,” he says, and Louis nearly falls over.

            “Are you serious?” he screeches, his voice breaking through several octaves. Niall nods furiously.

            “Yeah, it’s really really bad,” he confirms, continuing his pacing. Louis gets up and starts pacing with him.

            “Okay, it can’t be that terrible. I mean, he’s not the kind of guy to tell you he—”

            “No,” Niall howls, “that’s not it.” He stops and grabs Louis by the shoulders. “Promise you won’t tell him? I mean, I know he’s your best friend and all, but this is really important to me.” Louis nods, fingers crossed behind his back. He is so telling Zayn.

            “Alright, so here’s how it happened,” Niall begins, resuming his path. If Louis didn’t know any better, he’d expect some grooves to appear in the floor from where Niall continuously grates against it.

            “So basically, I like Zayn,” Niall says. Louis’ jaw drops. This can’t be happening. “But he totally likes Liam,” Niall continues, “and it’s super frustrating. Like, they’re always cuddling and stuff and slapping each other’s arses and saying inside jokes and then Zayn is like friend-zoning me or something and it sucks. Because I really like him, like really. And Zayn is totally infatuated with Liam and Liam is probably off banging Zayn right now or something like that and I’m just insanely jealous and I don’t know what to do.”

            Louis is definitely not telling Zayn.

Niall exhales at the end of his speech, and Louis watches as he deflates into a chair. “It just sucks, you know?” he asks, to no one in particular. “Like, if he had his eyes open just the slightest bit he’d see the way I look at him. But his eyes aren’t fixed on me anymore, and it’s the worst feeling.”

Louis grimaces. He knows the feeling all too well.

Niall looks at Louis, and Louis’ heart breaks at his sad face. “Look, I know you’re friends with Zayn, and I don’t really expect you to do anything for me and him. Or want you to, really,” Niall adds quickly. “I just wondered if you could keep an eye out and let me know if he says or does anything telling.”

Louis smiles. “I’d be glad to,” he says, and chuckles at how Niall’s face lights up.

“You’re the best, mate!” Niall crows, standing up and wiping his hands on his chalk-covered pants. “Now I’ve gotta go get some food before the vending machine shuts down. Want anything?”

Louis shakes his head. “No, it’s okay, thanks.”

Niall heads towards the door, but stops short and turns to look at Louis. “You okay?” he asks. Louis looks down at his feet and rubs the back of his head awkwardly.

“Yeah,” he chokes out. “I’m fine.”

Niall is silent for a minute, just staring at Louis. “You know,” he says quietly, “this won’t last forever. You’ll talk again, you’ll see.”

Louis looks up to thank Niall through his tear-blurred eyes, but he’s gone, leaving Louis alone again.

 

* * * * *

 

Friday is casual for a cause day, and Louis is just glad for any excuse to wear jeans to work. Even though he can normally get away with dark dress jeans, it’s such a nice change to be able to wear normal wash denim and tennis shoes. It makes him feel human.

Walking into the building with his bag stuffed to the brim with graded papers (and ungraded ones), he catches snippets of conversation from his friends.

“I’m serious, man, I’m totally getting with one of those chicks from the pub tonight,” Liam says to Zayn over the blaring of Radio One. He hears Zayn laugh and the impact of some object followed by a loud yelp from Liam.

Passing Niall’s room, he sees Niall’s desk covered with paper and his head down on the desk. His heart pangs with sympathy. He must have slept there last night. Louis remembers that first year, when he kept half of his wardrobe in his classroom because he spent so much time there figuring out how the whole teaching thing worked.

He has to walk past Harry’s room next. There’s Zayn’s across the hall, but it’s empty and Louis can’t use it as an excuse to hide before he makes his escape downstairs. Keeping his head forward, he quickly walks past Harry’s room, ignoring the soft sounds of The Weepies coming from the stereo. From his peripheral vision, he can see Harry writing notes on the blackboard, squinting adorably at his handwritten notes and transferring them unsuccessfully.

_Nothing else will do, I’ve gotta have you._

The crooning from the sound system threatens to split Louis in half, so he picks up the pace to pass Harry’s room and get away from all of that.

_No amount of coffee, no amount of crying, no amount of whiskey, no amount of wine._

He’s finally downstairs, and he can’t hear that stupid song anymore that makes him want to cry. He breathes deeply, and practices his yoga breathing as he fishes through his pocket for the keys to unlock his classroom.

Placing them in the lock, he turns to find that it has no give. Surprised and confused, he tries the handle; it’s unlocked. Did he forget to lock up last night? He was there past the custodial staff eating ramen and watching Corrie, but he could have sworn he locked the door.

Turning the handle, he pushes the door open to find all of the lights on. Now he’s just plain freaked out. What happened last night? Did he sleepwalk? Is he having amnesia?

“Surprise,” a voice says from behind the door.

Louis yelps and nearly jumps out of his skin. Nick walks out, laughing like a kid, his baseball t-shirt clinging to his abs. Louis reddens, and then angers.

“What the hell are you doing here? How do you know where I work, and how did you even get in my classroom?” Louis asks, walking over to his desk to unpack his bag.

Nick strides over to the desk and stands over it, palms facing downwards to dominate it. Louis swallows. It’s sexier than he anticipated.

“I had a couple of extra minutes off,” he says casually. “Figured I’d stop by. I brought you coffee,” he adds, gesturing towards a cup resting on one of the tables. Louis doesn’t look up from his work.

“I don’t drink coffee,” he says sternly. Rather than back off like he wanted him to, Nick just smiles.

“Got you tea just in case,” he responds, pointing to the cardboard holder on the counter by the door. Louis softens, and looks up at him.

“Thanks,” he says. Nick grins.

“Not a problem! I haven’t seen you in a week.” His fingers trace the edge of the desk as he adds “You hadn’t called me.” Louis stiffens up again, and goes back to unpacking.

“I was busy.” Nick clearly doesn’t think that’s an excuse, and it pisses Louis off even more that he doesn’t.

“Well, I’ve gotta get back to work,” Nick says, stretching. Louis can’t help but notice the thin strip of underwear that shows when his shirt lifts up. He swallows against the sudden dryness in his mouth. “Talk to you later?” he asks, walking to the door. Louis doesn’t say anything, just grunts noncommittally.

Once Nick is out of the room, Louis looks around to see if anyone else is around. It seems relatively quiet for a Friday morning. Scanning the classroom and the windows looking out onto the courtyard one more time, he walks slowly over the tea steaming on the table and takes a sip. It’s earl grey, his favorite.

Clicking the radio on, he settles down for a quiet few minutes to see if he can get some more papers graded before his first class.

“Hello everyone, it’s Nick here,” the announcer says. Louis stops and stares up at the speaker. That can’t be right.

“Thanks for listening to Radio One this morning, guaranteed to get you up and off to work on this slightly bleary Friday morning.” Nope, it’s definitely Nick. “This one right here is a little number called ‘Wonderwall’,” he continues. “Tommo, this is for you.”

Louis starts up again at the sound of his name. How did Nick know this was his favorite song?

_Today is gonna be the day they’re gonna throw it back to you._

As he sips his tea and gets back to grading, Louis can’t help but smile a little.

 

* * * * *

 

            Thankfully, lunch is extended because of an assembly on internet safety. Louis has everyone in his room, and at exactly eleven thirty, Liam troops in followed by Zayn and, at a distance, Niall.

            “Top o’ the morning, blokes!” Liam announces, making Zayn crack up. Niall looks abashed, but laughs uncomfortably. Louis rolls his eyes but smiles, opening his fridge to get his sandwich.

            “Good morning to you too, sunshine,” Louis answers sardonically, and gets a grin from Liam. How that boy manages to be so peppy all the time, Louis will never understand.

            Zayn plops himself down at their main table with a huff, unpacking his low-calorie homemade pasta salad and accompanying bag of high-calorie crisps. Clearly, Zayn is the epitome of health.

            Noticing Louis is staring with amusement at his lunch, Zayn looks up at him with wide eyes. “What?” he asks. “The salad cancels out the crisps, it’s scientifically proven.”

            As Niall begins throwing popcorn at Zayn’s head and Liam and Louis fight over which CD they want to listen to, the door opens, and Louis turns to see who’s there. With a start, he sobers up and stares at Harry Styles standing in the doorway with a brown paper bag and a look of embarrassment.

            The room goes dead quiet instantly. “Oh yeah,” Zayn squeaks out, “I invited Harry for lunch.” Louis makes a mental note to murder him in his sleep later.

            “Hi,” Harry says awkwardly, waving to the air in front of him. Louis clears his throat, putting on the air of tolerant but disgruntled host he adopts for talking about death, taxes, and ex-boyfriends. And Miley Cyrus.

            “Come on in, make yourself comfortable,” he says, flipping through the CD cases. Harry plods in and sits down between Niall and Zayn, on the opposite side of the table from where Louis’ lunch lays. Louis refuses to make eye contact with Harry, and his pretending he doesn’t exist blankets the entire room in awkward silence.

            “Um, I’ve gotta pee,” Niall says, sliding out his chair with sudden urgency. Zayn hops up. “Me too,” he declares, and Liam follows with a wave of his hand. The three trip over each other to get out of the door, and soon Louis is all alone with Harry and Now 85.

            “I don’t have much to say,” Louis says sharply, filing his CD’s away and turning the volume up on the speaker system before walking over to get his lunch. Harry just stares down at the table.

            “Look,” Harry says, with sudden ferocity that Louis has never heard from him before. “I’m sorry if I made things awkward, but I honestly don’t know what the fuck I did to deserve this. I just said that you’re better than a lot of other guys out there, and that’s not exactly a bad thing, so, I mean, there’s nothing really to be mad about.”

            He stands up, nearly shouting now. “And I’ve done nothing but be nice to you and you just prowl around here acting like I shot your mom or broke that stupid Marie Antoinette bobble-head you have or something.”

            “You can’t break it, her head comes off on purpose,” Louis shouts back.

            “Oh whatever!” Harry is almost screaming now. “You’re just selfish and miserable, and I don’t know what the fuck your problem is and you won’t let anybody help you and I’m trying to be nice to you but you don’t seem to want that and it’s whatever but just grow up, okay?”

            Louis doesn’t say anything, just sinks into a chair and rubs his temples. He feels tired, and old.

            “You’re right,” he concedes, talking almost at a whisper. “You’re right, I’m being a total asshole. I’m sorry.”

            Harry nods, still a bit worked up. “Yeah. You are being an asshole.” Louis stares at him, and Harry cringes.

            “It’s just been really unfair of you to act that way towards me. I just want to help you,” Harry says, looking at the table where someone drew a Mona Lisa with a moustache. Louis softens.

            “I know,” he says. “I know, but I just can’t let myself be helped. I’m past the point of fixing. I’m permanently and hopelessly damaged, and there’s nothing you can do to change that.” Harry shakes his head.

            “No, I refuse to believe that.” He looks into Louis’ eyes. “Nothing, no one is beyond saving. Not even you, if that’s what you think.”

            Louis can’t physically break the stare, it’s so powerful. Harry awkwardly gropes for his hand, catches it, and rubs the top with his fingers.

            “I will do everything in my power to make it better, whatever it is,” he says. “I promise, I’ll be there.”

            Louis flounders for words, head feeling like soup. Here’s Harry Styles, the guy he’d just spent an entire week avoiding out of pure hatred, holding his hand and telling him that he’ll try to make everything Stan made wrong right again. “Why are you doing this?” he finally asks.

            Harry doesn’t answer for a moment, but just sits and thinks, working his fingers over Louis’ hand. Louis can hardly breathe.

            “Do you ever just know something, and you don’t know why?”

            Louis is startled by the suddenness of Harry’s response. He nods, and Harry swallows, preparing himself to continue.

            “Well, I just know something about you. Like, when we first met, I knew that you were different. And I know we’ve only been friends for a few weeks, but I get the feeling that there’s something in you that’s been broken for a while. I don’t know why, but I know that I’m here to find out.”

            Louis can’t breathe. “I know something about you too,” he says. Harry looks up at him for the first time in what seems like forever, even though it’s probably only been about a minute.

            “I know that you make me feel different than anybody I’ve ever met,” Louis says. Suddenly it’s gushing out of him. “And it scares me, and I sort of hate it. Like, I meet you and then you just kind of crack me open and I don’t always like what I see. But I can still know it’s there, and you don’t care about it, you just smile and accept it and it’s brilliant but scary. And I appreciate that, because nobody else does that for me.”

            “Not even Zayn?” Harry cracks. Louis laughs, looking down at their hands.

            “No, he’s normally too busy watching footie to deal with my problems. Plus he probably deserves a large sum of money for all the stuff I have wrong with me.”

            Harry looks sympathetic. “Well, seeing you happy would be payment enough for me.” Louis feels like he could die right now and be perfectly content.

            They sit there for a while, just being in the same space, and breathing the same air, and not wanting to break the magic bond that connects them, afraid that if they move everything will snap and fall out from underneath them.

            It’s the bell that snaps them both out of it, and they look at their uneaten lunches and laugh at how they spent the entire time sitting there and wasted an extended lunch period. Louis rushes around to put his music away, shoving parts of his sandwich into his mouth and moving between tables and desks with sometimes painful consequences. He prays he hasn’t bruised his hip. It’s bound to happen someday.

            Finally, everything is back in order, and Louis can breathe again. He looks up to see Harry standing back at the door, grinning at him. Louis blushes, and Harry notices.

            “So, pick you up at seven tomorrow?” Harry asks, opening the door to go.

            Louis grins. “Uh, yeah! Sure.” Harry waves goodbye and shuts the door behind him. Louis is going on a date. With Harry Styles. Tomorrow. He could definitely get used to this.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you guys so much for the support!!! keep reading, and i'll keep writing :)
> 
> songs in this one are "Around The World" by A Touch of Class and "Don't Look Back" by Telepopmusik. throwbacks from my youth lol

Louis wakes up before his alarm. This is rare; in fact, he’s pretty sure it’s impossible. He never wakes up before five, when his alarm blares and starts rolling across the floor so he has to get up to chase it around and turn it off. He bought the moving clock for a reason: he can’t ever get out of bed when he’s supposed to.

But it’s five and Louis has all of the lights on and he’s playing Girls Aloud like it’s not actually five o’clock in the morning and he’s making coffee and scones and it’s quite a feat for him to be doing all of this at such an early hour. He’s humming along to Cheryl and Nadine and just jamming out. Literally, he’s got the strawberry jam out and he’s making himself a sandwich for lunch. This is unheard of in Louis’ world.

Tomorrow, the tomorrow of his first date with Harry Styles (squeal!) is now today, which means that Louis’ stomach is somewhere between butterflies and contaminated seafood. Part of him is worried that whatever Harry has in mind is going to cause some sort of conflict, and the other part keeps insisting that the first part is crazy and Louis has to tell them both to shut up because he’s not exactly sure why he’s talking to himself.

So he finally manages to get himself together, ripping his entire closet to pieces trying to find the right outfit before settling on the one he had laid out the night before. He’s practically hyperventilating by this point, and it’s quite stressful, but he takes a few deep breaths and hops in the shower before getting dressed.

Rinsing out his hair, Louis can’t believe he let himself get this frazzled. Normally he’s very composed, even austere, but for whatever reason this date, a first date, has him losing his entire mind. If he doesn’t remind himself to keep breathing, he’ll stop, and if he didn’t remind himself to take off his pajamas, he might very well have gotten in the shower with all of his clothes on.

Even when he was with Stan, things never got this out of control. The name sobers him up a little, and reminds him he has yet to condition. As he measures out the precise amount on to his palm, he remembers the first date he had with Stan, when he thought he had his entire life figured out.

_“Lou, are you ready yet?” Stan calls from outside the bathroom, where Louis is frantically getting himself in order. Dropping several different combs and stubbing his toe on the vanity, he manages to squeak out an “I’m fine” before descending into a string of curses._

_Not knowing what to do with his hair supplies, he looks around desperately for a place to store everything. Between the throbbing in his big toe and the rabid, possibly cannibalistic butterflies in his stomach, he can barely think straight._

_“Coming!” he hollers before Stan can ask again, and lifts up the bathmat and shoves everything underneath. He unlocks the door and steps out with his head held high and meets a bemused Stan._

_“Uh, you seem to have a bit of a lump in your bathmat,” Stan comments, but Louis steamrolls over him with a noncommittal answer and a hurried shutting of the bathroom door._

_“Our reservations are for 8:30, right?” Louis asks as he plods lazily to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water._

_Stan looks slightly uncomfortable. “Um, they’re actually for right now.” To make everything that much more awkward, Louis has made both of them late for their first date by obsessing over his outfit._

_“I’m officially the worst boyfriend ever,” Louis moans, vaulting over his couch and throwing on the first pair of shoes he sees. Stan laughs and grabs him before he can rocket out the door. Pulling him back, Stan looks into Louis’ eyes, and he can feel the butterflies inside settle down._

Louis groans. Of course, he forgot to shut the alarm off. How convenient.

Toweling himself off and racing into the bedroom, he starts searching for the insistent blaring coming from somewhere in the general vicinity. He checks under the bed, finding nothing. The dresser yields nothing, and it sounds like it’s continually moving. He decides—

“Louis, I—” And suddenly Zayn is walking in the door and Louis is not wearing a towel and Zayn looks at Louis and Louis looks at Zayn and Zayn looks down at Louis’ dick and Louis looks at Zayn and then they both yelp and Louis hops behind the door.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Zayn, haven’t you ever heard of the doorbell?” Louis screams, searching desperately for some article of clothing to cover himself with.

Zayn is screaming at a slightly higher frequency than the clock is, covering his eyes and apologizing extremely loudly.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I thought you’d still be in bed, and I don’t know, I just thought that you would be wearing something other than like, nothing!” In his panic, he walks right into the clock, which flips over and turns itself off.

“Well at least you’re useful for something,” Louis mutters. Pointing to his bed from behind the door, he adds “Can you just toss me my boxers?” Zayn holds up his hand to the side of his face and flings them at Louis.

“Neon pink? What, are you getting laid tonight?” Zayn asks while giving Louis as much privacy as he deserves in his own bedroom. It’s not like Louis actually lives here or anything like that.

“Hopefully,” Louis shoots back as he finishes adjusting the boxers. They’re looser than he remembered them being. That could possibly be Stan’s fault.

“Seriously?” Zayn asks as Louis steps out from behind the door to put his shirt on. “With who?” Louis shoots him a death glare as he starts buttoning.

“Oh, I don’t know, Harry Styles?” Louis asks sardonically. Zayn’s eyes widen and his mouth drops open.

“You’re kidding, right?” Louis shakes his head. “Why didn’t you tell me? This is huge, man!” He stops, confused. “Wait, but I thought you hated him.”

Louis rolls his eyes, reaching for his pants. “Well I did, but while you were drooling over Niall things changed a bit.” Zayn reddens and looks down.

“’M sorry, mate. You shoulda told me, I wanted to know.” Louis is too freaked out by the anticipation of his date and the shock of Zayn’s intrusion to be nice.

“Yeah, well, your head was too far up your arse to listen anyway.” As soon as he says it, he feels guilty, and the hurt look on Zayn’s face doesn’t help.

“I should go,” Zayn says tightly. “I mean, considering I’ve clearly ruined everything.” He turns promptly and stalks out of the bedroom. Immediately, Louis is overwhelmed with regret.

“Zayn, come back,” he calls, hopping into the hallway with one leg in his pants and the other in the middle of the process. Zayn stops short of the entryway, turning around with arms crossed to face Louis, who finishes putting on his jeans before he falls on his face.

“Look, Zayn, I’m sorry,” Louis says as he straightens his pant legs. “I’m just in a really weird place right now because I haven’t felt this way about anybody since Stan, and it’s just really disconcerting and I’m all out of sorts.”

Zayn softens at this, uncrossing his arms. “Yeah, I get that. Plus me walking in on you naked probably didn’t help either.”

Louis laughs, shaking his head. “No, not really.”

Smiling mischievously, Zayn adds “I haven’t seen your dick since we dated right when we started teaching,” and grins. Louis gags and covers his face with his hands.

“Oh god, Zayn, stop,” he moans. “That’s not a thing for a reason.”  They laugh for a little while at how awkward that whole time was, and then Louis checks his watch.

“Shit,” he mumbles, throwing a jacket on, “I’m gonna be late.” Zayn holds out his hand, keys dangling between his fingers.

“Wanna ride to work with me?” he asks. Louis grins.

“Zayn Malik, you’re a life-saver,” he says, patting his friend on the shoulder as he turns off his lights.

“On one condition,” Zayn adds, but Louis quickly adds “We’re not talking about Niall, Zayn.”

 

* * * * * *

 

“Anybody seen this one before?” Louis asks, flipping to the next slide in his presentation about the art of Classical Greece. Projected on the screen is one of his favorite statues from the period, _Nike Adjusting Her Sandal_. No one responds, partially because it’s the end of the day and partially because they’re really pretty ignorant when it comes this whole art thing. Which is kind of an issue, because this is an art class.

“It’s one of the classics in Greek art from this period.” Louis walks up to the front of the room, using his laser pointer to point out significant details. “As you can see, her head is missing. She was likely beheaded, either during the Peloponnesian War or sometime during the Roman Empire.” He gestures to her dress, continuing, “The folds of her garment are extraordinarily detailed. They’re etched deep into the marble so that you can see the shadows between each individual layer. It’s quite exquisite.”

Crossing to the other side, he notes the gentle curve of her back. “Nike was one of the Greek deities who was probably actually a mortal. She’s frequently seen as a symbol of victory in Greek sculpture and art, and she’s normally flying, but she was likely an allegorical figure rather than a literal one.”

The bell rings, and everyone rushes to gather their things, breaking out into excited chatter. “Everyone, remember, your essay on the differences between Archaic and Classical Greek Art is due next class,” Louis shouts over the din. “We’ll pick up with Athena Partheneos.” He puts his notecards back in order, stacking them neatly, and saying goodbye to all of his students.

He genuinely likes them. Even though sometimes they can be annoying, and often don’t nearly study as much as they should, they’re good kids. Hopefully they like him too. Every once in a while, he hears snippets of conversation in the lunchroom or in the halls, and comments about his class. It seems like most people really like it, and he hopes it’s true.

There’s a knock on his door, and Harry walks in with a smile on his face. Louis nearly melts upon seeing him, donning a black shirt, white bow tie, and red dress pants. It’s so unique, and kind of weird, but it just works.

“Looking good,” Louis comments as casually as his fangirling insides will let him. Harry smiles, and looks at the floor with a blush.

“You too,” he adds. “I like the shirt.” Louis looks down to see that during the confusion resulting from Zayn’s intrusion in the morning, he put on his Britney Spears _Onyx Hotel Tour_ t-shirt instead of the ironed and starched collared one he’d laid out.

He groans aloud, slapping himself in the forehead. “Seriously? I went through the whole day and nobody said anything?” Harry laughs.

“Just be glad none of the admin saw you wearing that number.” He and Louis stand for a little while longer being awkward before Louis realizes that they’re lounging in the weirdness between them.

“So, ready to go?” he asks. Harry nods, grinning. “Are you gonna tell me where we’re going?”

Harry shakes his head as Louis grabs his bag and locks up for the night. “No way! It’s a surprise.” Louis laughs.

“I really hate surprises,” he says with a touch of the real hatred he holds for them. Harry doesn’t pick up on it, or at least doesn’t seem to.

“I think you’ll like this,” is his response. Louis braces himself for the unexpected.

 

* * * * * *

 

            “You’re kidding me, right?” Louis asks. They’re standing in front of Lucky Strike Bowling Lanes, neon bowling pin and all.

            Harry shakes his head, a proud smile on his face. “Not in the least.” Louis looks at him, half with disgust and half with admiration.

            “You’re proud of yourself, aren’t you?” he asks. Harry just laughs and pulls him inside. Inside, Louis learns, is a massive neon space with pumping techno music and neon signs everywhere. It’s noisy, with school kids playing in some lanes and young kids at a birthday party over by the pizza stand.

            “Would you care for some haute cuisine or the beloved sport first?” Harry asks. Louis can’t help but smile at how mockingly serious he is about the whole thing, even if part of him wants to scream and run away. He can’t tell if that’s out of fear of the bowling or of getting close to Harry.

            “I think I wanna work up an appetite,” Louis says, heading over the counter with racks of bowling shoes. Within ten minutes they have a lane set up, bowling shoes on, and a game to play. Louis’ name can’t fit in the user box on the computer screen, so it shows up as L0UIS which cracks Harry up even though he has to settle for a HARR.

            Harry lets Louis go first, but as he’s lining up his shot he stops and straightens up.

            “Is that A Touch of Class I hear?” Louis asks to Harry, who’s sitting on the floor next to him. Harry squints his eyes as if that will help him see the song around him. He’s serious when he does it, and Louis can see the gears spinning in his head.

            “Yep,” Harry concludes, “that would be my girls ATC.” Louis laughs and bowls his first shot – straight into the gutter. Harry lets him try again, and this time he gets four pins down.

            _And now the bells are ringing, and the world is singing._

            Egging him on, Louis keeps taunting Harry as he meticulously lines up the bowling ball. He squats, draws a line with his finger, stands, turns to the side, then goes face forward, and pitches it straight into the gutter.

            Louis laughs so hard he cries, and Harry does too.

            After a few rounds, Louis gets the hang of it, and ends up making three strikes in a row. Triumphant in his return to the bench, he shouts “Turkey! In your face, Styles!” Harry grins and holds up his hand to give him a high five. It connects, and Louis feels electricity surge between them, so hot it sets his soul on fire. They hold their hands together for longer than they should, and that’s when Louis blurts out that he’s hungry.

            “So how’s your class going?” Louis asks through a mouthful of cheap pizza. Harry shrugs as he takes a sip of his massive soda.

            “Well enough, I guess. ‘M teaching the kids the whole exploration thing. They seem to get it for the most part. Their last essays weren’t too bad either.” He takes a chunk of Louis’ crust and chews thoughtfully. “We haven’t done much art lately though. It feels like we’re stuck in the same time period right now.”

            Louis nods, half upset that he won’t get to use that excuse anymore to work with Harry, at least for a while. “Well, if you need any help.”

            Harry nods, swallowing. “Yeah, of course. And if you want any help with your classes, I’m always there.” Louis smiles gratefully.

            There’s a few moments of awkward silence as they sit in a bubble amidst all of the noise and chaos going on around them.

            “Can I ask you something?” Harry asks suddenly. Surprised, Louis looks up, inviting him to go. Harry looks uncomfortable, and then blurts out, “Why me?”

            Louis pauses, thinking about what he means. “Like, why do I like you?” Harry nods, but won’t make eye contact. Louis looks around the room as he thinks about his answer. “Um,” he starts, panning. He lights on the mom and dad with their two kids sharing a pizza over in the corner, and the little girl celebrating her fifth birthday. He sees the teenage couple drinking a milkshake with two straws and the old man and woman sitting at a booth with ice cream.

            “You make me feel normal,” he says finally. “Like, I feel like I’m just another person.” Harry doesn’t say anything, nor with his eyes, but Louis still feels like he has to correct himself. “I mean, you make me feel special, of course, but not like I’m different somehow. You treat me like everybody else, you don’t make me out to be somebody I’m not.” Harry nods, letting it sink in.

            “You see things,” he concludes after a while. Louis looks up, not sure what Harry means. “Like, you look at a picture, at a life, and you see depth. You read the image, the two-dimensional nature of people and you can create a story. Something about you gives so much life to everything, even the most unlively things.”

            Louis doesn’t say anything, just absorbs it. That’s how they sit for the rest of the date, bringing each other to life.

 

* * * * * *

 

            The ride home is slightly more lively, but they’re both tired from a long week at school. Harry has the radio on, quiet storm techno, and Louis likes the way it blends with the lights of the city. As they speed past the office buildings and apartments, Louis realizes that inside of each of those rooms, behind each of those lights, is a life, separate and yet part of something bigger. He’s in a car, and they’re in their rooms, but yet they’re part of one big universe that pushes them together and expects them to make sense out of everything they’re given.

            He then realizes that Zayn gave him a ride to school for a reason: so that Harry would have to take him home. He smiles to himself, and makes a note to never let Zayn get away from him.

            _Don’t look back, when love comes calling, don’t look away._

He looks over at Harry, his face a shillouette in the moonlight. His nose is beautiful, angled just perfectly, and his hair falls like dark cherry ringlets onto his forehead. His eyelashes are impossibly long, and his lips seem full and so kissable.

            Harry looks over at him, as if he realized that Louis was staring, and smiles. Louis smiles back.

            The trips ends too soon, and Harry pulls into the parking lot outside Louis’ building, getting out to open the door for him. Louis thanks him, and they stand in front of the main door awkwardly, not sure what to say.

            “So? What’d you think?” Harry asks. Louis smiles.

            “I’ll admit, I was slightly incredulous at first. But I really liked it, it was a lot of fun.” It’s Harry’s turn to smile at that.

            “See what happens when you try something new?” he asks. Louis laughs, and then they resort back to that slightly awkward silence thing they do.

            All of a sudden, Harry kind of bolts upright, and says “Well, I’d better be getting back.” Louis nods, swallowing past the lump in his throat.

            “Yeah, no, sure,” he stammers awkwardly, fishing for his keys in the pocket of his pants. “I totally understand.” He looks at Harry directly again. “Thanks for this. I had a really good time.”

            Harry smiles softly. His eyes are full and wide and yet so broken. “Yeah, me too,” he nearly whispers, and then turns to go back to his car.

            Is that it? Louis wonders. Really? Nothing, after all of this?

            “Oh,” Harry says suddenly, turning on his heel, “I almost forgot.”

            He walks over to Louis, grabs his face, and plants his lips on his. The kiss is perfect, sweet, and sugary, dripping with honey and sharp with cinnamon. It’s gingerbread and dandelions and warm cookies with ice cream mixed in with fresh blueberries and summer rain and the first time Louis uses his heavy sheets in the winter. It’s everything Louis could ever have wanted in a kiss.

            They both pull away at the same time, out of breath from the rush of sweetness they tasted. Louis leans in first, desperately kissing Harry, and then Harry takes control, and it’s a push and pull and it feels like something new.

            Finally, Harry pulls away. “G’night, Tomlinson,” he says. Louis would smile, but he’s feeling lightheaded from the taste of Harry.

            “Night, Styles,” is all he can say, as Harry gets back into his car and drives away before Louis stumbles up into his apartment, crash-lands on his couch, and spends the rest of the night staring at the ceiling.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> merpppp i've had a rough week so it kinda shows but i hope you enjoy it regardless!!
> 
> i think this is my favorite chapter i've written so far....not a lot of development in terms of the harry!louis part, but definitely a lot of character and thematic development. something about this calms me down lol
> 
> the quote at the end comes from (obviously) Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, one of my favorites.

The next week sucks.

            For whatever reason, Harry either calls in sick or is off at first year teacher conferences (Louis remembers those, however much he tries not to), and it makes Louis miserable. He tries not to act like it bothers him too much, especially since it was only one date and one stupid kiss and he shouldn’t have gotten that excited about it anyway, not this soon after Stan.

            He only sees Harry for brief moments in the mornings, when he’s getting his classroom together or running to the copy machine upstairs, and then it’s a moment, with a stolen glance and a shy smile and then he’s off again, doing whatever he has to do, and leaving Louis behind.

            “Do you think I’m overdoing this?” Louis asks Liam one morning. Liam’s tacking up some posters in his room and Louis promised he’d help him, but instead he’s just sitting on top of a desk tracing patterns with the ring his mug of tea left on it.

            Liam doesn’t look behind him, just asks “Do you?” Louis rolls his eyes. This is such a Liam question.

            “I asked you, Li. You can’t just turn my own question around on me.”

            “Yes I can,” Liam responds, still trying to line up the top of one of his posters with the border on the bulletin board. Louis is glad he can’t see him right now, because he’s pretty sure Liam wouldn’t appreciate the hand he has up mocking Liam talking. He’s using his sharpie to draw eyes and a little nose on the side of his thumb and pointer finger when Liam turns around.

            “So, do you think you’re overdoing this?” Liam asks again, walking to his desk for some extra thumbtacks. Louis sighs deeply and shrugs.

            “I mean, I don’t know. I guess. Maybe. Who knows? It’s just one date, right?” Liam doesn’t say anything, just scratches his temple and walks back to his project. Louis sits in the silence of his words for a while, lets himself soak in the gravity of it. Just one date. He could drown in that, however shallow the idea was.

            “Maybe I’m still hung up on Stan,” Louis wonders aloud. Liam hums thoughtfully, a thumbtack balanced carefully between two teeth.

            “I mean we were….serious,” Louis chokes out. “He was my first, like, real boyfriend. I guess you don’t get over that stuff too fast.” Liam nods slightly, raising one corner of his poster and drawing an invisible tangent line from it with his finger.

            “Don’t they say it takes half the time of the relationship for you to get over someone?” he continues. Liam shrugs. “I mean, we dated for…” he stops short before he can bring himself to say the number out loud. “A while” is what he manages to say, but Liam knows anyway.

            “And half of a while is?” Liam asks, not changing his stare. Louis looks down at the floor awkwardly.

            “I don’t know, a long time,” he says ambivalently. Liam either doesn’t notice or doesn’t mind, because he doesn’t say anything. “Harry’s just…different. I don’t know. Stan felt like a risk, like I was in the front car of a roller coaster just reaching the top and I could feel myself getting ready to drop. Harry’s not like that. He’s…” He struggles for the words for a little while. “Stability. Like, he makes me feel grounded.”

            Liam doesn’t say anything for a very long time. For a while, Louis wonders if he’s forgotten he even exists. Or he could have fallen asleep standing up. It wouldn’t be the first time. He draws figure eights in the water on the desk.

            “You should tell him that,” Liam says, making Louis jump a bit.

            Louis shakes his head, knowing that he’ll do anything but that. “No way,” he says, erasing his drawings. “We’ve had one date, but you make it sound like I’ve just broke off a wedding proposal or something.”

            There’s something palpable in the air after he says it, and Louis isn’t sure he likes it. It feels thick, and smothering, and he can’t breathe under how heavy it is.

            “Well, just talk to him about something,” Liam says after what seems like eons. Louis realizes he’s been holding his breath the entire time. It feels like he’s seen the extinction of the dinosaurs in all of that time in between his and Liam’s observations.

            Eager to get out of there before he says something even more awkward, he hops off the desk. “I’d better get down to my room,” he says. “Thanks, Li.”

            Liam finally turns around and smiles at him. “You know you can come to me anytime you need me.” Louis smiles back, nodding.

            As he rounds the desk to leave Liam’s room, he notices that his figure eights are infinity signs. Slightly flattened, and on their sides, but infinity signs nonetheless.

 

* * * * *

 

            “Do we really have to do this today, Mr. T?” one of his students asks third hour. Louis sighs, looking down at his notes for Hellenistic art. It’s normally one of his favorite units to teach, and a personal favorite in art history in general, but he can’t bring himself to face it today.

            “Look, I’m sorry, but we’ve got to get through this,” he says. Lying through clenched teeth is obviously sounds as blatant as it feels inside, because none of his students look particularly convinced. “This next one’s pretty cool. Nike of Samothrace. Any guesses as to the function of this piece?”

            One fourth year raises her hand. “It looks like one of those sculptures you see on the front of a ship.” Louis smiles. At least someone’s with the program, even if it’s not him.

            “Yeah, great guess!” he says. “Actually, you’re sort of right. Even though Nike was actually part of a fountain, she’s designed to look like she belongs on the prow of a ship. She was a naval figure in this context. Nice job!” The girl smiles shyly.

            Louis explains the characteristic drapery of the statue, the plaster wing on the right side, and the original pose that the statue held when it was intact. The kids seem to like it, or at least pretend to, and that’s all Louis needs to get through.

            It’s finally lunch once the bell rings, and the students are only slightly slower to leave than Louis is to get them out. Shutting the door behind him, he heads to his mini fridge and pulls out a can of soda to go with his hoagie he got on the way in that morning. Thursdays are hard, but a good sandwich makes it a little bit better.

            “Knock knock.” Louis is startled out of his meditation on lunchmeat by an unfamiliar voice at the door. Looking up, he sees the tall, lanky figure of Nick leaning against the doorframe. Try as he might, he can’t help but trace the contours of his body and the tight look of his suit.

            “You again,” Louis says as nonchalantly as he can muster. Nick snorts and walks further inside.

            “That’s no way to greet a friend,” he playfully chides, coming over to sit on the table across from the one Louis’ sitting in.

            He’s not in the mood for playful banter, especially without Harry there to intervene. “Who said we were friends?” Nick gasps, grabs his heart, and pitches back dramatically, legs flopping up in the air. Louis is glad he’s laying down so that he can’t see his amused look at such a reaction.

            “You stab my heart, young Eros,” Nick responds, sitting back up. His voice is thick and lush saying the words, and it makes Louis’ heart (or stomach, he can hardly tell which anymore) leap into his throat.

            “Me think the lady doth protest too much,” he snaps back and Nick snorts with laughter. Louis is slightly pleased to see that his reaction isn’t quite as overly dramatic as before, and is slightly more authentically hurt.

            “You’re particularly brash today, Tomlinson,” Nick says, scooting closer. “Talk to me.” Louis shifts uncomfortably, picking a stray lettuce leaf out of his sandwich.

            “I don’t think you’d really understand,” he says tightly. Nick clearly doesn’t get the hint.

            “Aw, come on. What, did you murder somebody?”

            Louis frowns. “No.” Nick looks pensive, searching for possible explanations.

            “Did you steal something?”

            “No.”

            “Did you do something illegal?”

            “What is this, twenty questions?”

            “Hey, I’m supposed to be asking, not you.”

            Louis rolls his eyes. “Well, I’m not telling you.” As if angels from above heard his prayers, Zayn and Liam walk in with their lunches, chattering away about the latest footie match.

            “ ‘S happening, man?” Liam asks, grinning as always. Clearly neither he nor Zayn noticed Nick on their first forays into Louis’ room because they look slightly taken aback upon seeing him.

            “Uh, who’s your friend?” Zayn asks with as much dignity as he can muster. Louis is torn between wanting to punch him and hug him.

            “This is Nick. Nick Grimshaw.” Nick smiles and extends a hand.

            “How do you, gentlemen?” Zayn’s eyes widen, and Liam’s mouth drops open.

            “Wait, Nick Grimshaw? Like the radio guy?” Liam asks. Zayn can’t form anything coherent, but continues opening and closing his mouth without saying anything.

            Nick laughs. “Yep, that’s me. I’m sure you didn’t recognize my face, but my voice sounded familiar.”

            “You bet!” Zayn finally manages. “Lou, how come you didn’t say anything?”

            Louis shrugs, still refusing to make eye contact. “I dunno, never came up, I guess.”

            “Never came up?” Liam asks. “This is like the coolest thing to ever happen to you! You became friends with Nick Grimshaw and just never thought to say anything?”

            “Not really,” Louis snaps, slamming his sandwich down on the table he’s sitting on as hard as one can actually slam a sandwich. “I’m not really particularly obsessed with all of that celebrity shit, and I couldn’t give a fuck who this guy is. In fact, he tried to pick me up at a bar.”

            Nick grins. “Not gonna even try and deny that one.”

            Louis whirls on him, jabbing a finger in his face. “Oh, so you’re proud of that now? That you were a sleazebag and decided it’d be so cool to go after me in the middle of a fucking bar? You’re so fucking classy.”

            He can’t tell if Nick responds, because he answers evenly “Well, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

            By this point Louis is literally fuming. “Really? Is that so? Well, for a man you certainly don’t have balls big enough to give you the sense to be respectful and not lie about having found a license just so you can sleep with me. What do you think I am, some kind of cheap slut?”

            Nick looks upset, and sort of angry. “I never said that,” he responds, clearly more agitated than before. “You’re not anything like that, Tommo.”

            “Damn right, I’m not,” Louis says, nearly screaming now. “I’m not anything like that, because that’s not who I am. And stop fucking calling me Tommo! It’s Louis. Learn to spell it!”

            Zayn and Liam look horrified, and Louis can’t tell if it’s because Louis is _yelling_ at Nick Grimshaw or if it’s because Louis is yelling at _Nick Grimshaw_. He’s just glad Niall’s off at that teacher’s meeting so he doesn’t have to endure the endless pining looks from Zayn.

            “Look, I’m sorry if you’re offended by anything I’ve done, but I’m not trying to hurt you,” Nick says, getting defensive. Louis rolls his eyes and crosses his arms impatiently.

            “Oh, how many times have I heard that one?” he asks. “That’s right, about five thousand times. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t work.”

            “Well, I’m sorry, okay?” Nick shouts, matching Louis for volume now. “I don’t know why you have such a big fucking chip on your shoulder and such a big fat stick up your ass but I’m just trying to be a nice guy and you’re standing here screaming at me for it!”

            “That’s right, Nick,” Louis sneers, “I am standing here screaming at you for it. And I do have a big fucking chip on my shoulder, and if you really like me you’ll be able to move past it and not just tiptoe around it and do a bunch of dumb shit to try to impress me. This isn’t fucking middle school, you can’t buy me food and expect me to like you.”

            Nick rolls his eyes and slams his foot down on the ground. “Oh really? I had no idea, because I’m not an adult or anything. For your information, Tomlinson, I know what I’m doing here.”

            “I told you not to call me Tomlinson!”

            “Does it sound like I care?”

            “No!”

            “Good, cause I don’t!”  
            By this point, Louis is literally seeing red. He never even got this angry when he and Stan had their worst fights, and he thought those were bad. “What the fuck are you even doing here anyway?”

            He hears the doorknob turning, and sees a breathless and red-cheeked Harry standing in the hallway followed by an equally out of breath Niall. Opening his mouth to say something, he’s cut off by Nick’s hand on his wrist.

            “Because I like you, Louis, okay? Like has it ever occurred to you that someone in your life could genuinely like you for who you are?”

            Nick looks at Louis and Louis looks at Harry and Harry looks at the ground and Zayn and Liam look uncomfortable.

            Now both infuriated and embarrassed, Louis snatches up his lunch and storms past Nick and his two friends. “Excuse me,” he snaps under his breath, and pushes past Harry and Niall in the doorway. He thinks he hears someone calling after him, but he doesn’t care, he just keeps walking down the hallway and doesn’t stop till he’s out the staff door and inside of his car and he puts the crappy heater on and puts his head in his hands and sobs.

            Of course, the time when Harry comes back is the time when Nick is there and fucks everything up with his idiotic heart to heart chats and now everything is ruined and he can never ever go back there ever again.

            The passenger side door opens, and Zayn slides in. Louis doesn’t bother to try to collect himself, just chokes back some sobs and smears his tears on the collar of his dress shirt.

            “So how badly did I screw things up?” Louis asks before breaking down again. “I bet Harry and Niall think I’m a dick and Nick…I don’t even want to think about Nick.” Zayn sighs and shifts in the seat so he’s tilted towards Louis.

            “It’s not that big of a deal,” he says, but Louis is too angry to listen.

            “Oh, bullshit,” he snaps through tears. “You and I both know I’ve fucked up pretty majorly this time around.”

            Zayn looks down at his lap and bites his lip, worried. “I don’t think it’s as bad as you think it is,” he tries, but earns an incredulous look from Louis.

            “Really? I only had a first date with Harry on Friday and it’s Thursday and we haven’t talked and so the first time we see each other I’m screaming at a guy with a ham sandwich in my hand and he tells me he likes me. That’s really a great start to any relationship right there.”

            Louis just can’t believe his bad luck. He thought things could turn around, but it’s clearer now than ever that it’s not the case.

            “Do you want me to leave you alone?” Zayn asks after a stretch of silence. Louis nods, and turns his head to face the side window. Zayn gets up and stands up outside the car. He’s about to walk away when he suddenly leans down again.

            “You know, maybe if you stopped feeling so sorry for yourself and grew up a bit, things would be different,” he says, and slams the door as he heads back into the building. Louis just cries harder. He’s losing everybody.

 

* * * * * *

 

            Back in his apartment that night, Louis keeps the telly and the radio off. He sits in silence and eats tuna out of a can and stares at the wall. He doesn’t sleep that night.

            Friday comes and Louis is absolutely dreading going to school. He’s saved up some days from last year he was planning to use for a vacation to the Canary Islands with Stan, but since that’s clearly not going to happen, he calls in sick with one of them.

            He sleeps for two hours in the morning, just enough to keep him functioning, and then he spends the rest of the day sitting at the kitchen table looking out the window. Outside is life. Outside is the real world. What’s inside then?

            People are moving, and living all around him. They’re like ants, tiny but powerful, carrying bags of groceries and suitcases and pushing strollers and laughing and talking and looking at the sky and they’re all sharing the same space and just being together and living. And Louis is there, inside. A glass enclosure, a cage he has the key to, but won’t open. Can’t open, because that life outside has no meaning if you’re just as alone out there as you are inside.

            His eyes follow a woman with a bouquet of flowers. She walks down the street and pauses outside of his window. For some reason, she looks up, and sees him. They make eye contact, and she smiles slightly before turning and crossing the street.

            _Mrs. Dalloway said she would get the flowers herself._

He doesn’t understand it. And perhaps he never will. But people aren’t meant to exist in cages, alone and isolated from the rest of the world. They need to touch each other, to grope in the dark under cover of ink and blankets, to laugh and sing and dance in the rain and catch lightning bugs with the stars in their eyes. They need to watch the sunrise over the ocean and catch a snowflake and taste it melting on their tongues, knowing something entirely individual is becoming a part of them. They need to cut down Christmas trees, and set off fireworks in the summer, and swing on tires over open lakes. They need to have dessert before the meal, bake their cake and eat it too. They need to sleep. They need to dream.

            _Mrs. Dalloway said she would get the flowers herself._

Louis spent hours in uni puzzling over what that meant. What Virginia Woolf wanted to say with that. Some people said it was about empowering women. Others said it was about reconciling the fact that she was going to die. A few said it was just plain stupid.

            But Louis knows the answer. Or at least he thinks he does. It’s about existing, being as an individual, and getting out of your cage and taking flight. Being around others, being a part of the world around you. Loving and living, for all its worth.

            _Mrs. Dalloway said she would get the flowers herself._

There were still a few hours left in the school day. Enough time to teach a few classes and get some grading done. Maybe it could work. Maybe he could do it.

            He throws on a pair of jeans and a collared shirt, makes his bed haphazardly, and locks the door behind him.

            Louis Tomlinson is going to get the flowers himself.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YAAAAY thank you guys so much for the 1000+ page views!!!! even though i'm pretty sure half of them are from me, it means so much that you like my work. i love y'all <3
> 
> anyhoo as a present for so many views, may i present:
> 
> THE FIRST (and certainly not the last) CHAPTER OF SMUT! YAY
> 
> lol it's pretty lowkey but it will get significantly more intense i PROMISE
> 
> love you guys!! comment please :)

Louis is watching the second week of the live X-Factor shows when his phone rings. Shoving off his flannel blanket and capping his red pen, he stretches over to grab it from the coffee table, where it’s vibrating violently to the tune of “Can’t Speak French”.

            “Hello?” he grumbles, not bothering to check the number.

            “Hey, it’s Harry.”

            Louis nearly falls off of his couch. What is Harry doing calling him?

            “Oh, um, hi.” There’s a bit of an awkward pause while the two of them think of what to say next.

            “Um, what can I do for you?” Louis stammers finally, slapping himself for sounding like such an idiot. Luckily for him, Harry stammers too, mumbling nonsense for half a minute before responding.

            “Well, uh, I need some help with the art stuff. I’m none too good with all of that seventeenth century stuff. ‘T all looks the same.”

            “Oh,” Louis says, not sure whether to be surprised or worried or excited or all of the above. “Uh, yeah, that’s no problem. Wanna meet free period tomorrow?”

            There’s a pause. “Well, uh….I was kinda wondering if I could come over now?”

            Louis thought he was about to fall off of his couch the first time, but now he’s sure he literally was yanked up off of the floor by some invisible force before smacking his head on the carpet.

            “Yeah,” he says after momentary silence, sitting up and running a hand through his hair. “Let me, uh, just neaten up and stuff.” He looks around his apartment and suddenly feels like a bomb has exploded all over it. Or a supermarket. Either way, still bad.

            “No problem,” Harry says, sounding like he’s scuffling or something. Louis can hear the patter of socks on wood floors in the background. “I have to get my stuff together and get myself over there anyhow, so….”

            Louis nods, then remembers you can’t hear a nod over the phone. “Oh, uh, yeah, that’s fine. So….see you soon?”

            There’s a silence, and Louis imagines that Harry’s nodding into the phone too. “Yeah, see you soon.”

            After Louis hangs up, there’s a moment of quiet reflection and then a string of curses as he leaps over the coffee table and starts frantically cleaning up the apartment. With one hand, he snatches up the dirty dishes and piles them in the sink, and with the other he has a duster and is trying to remove the multiple layers of dust coating half of the den.

            Next comes a trash bag like a trawling net, sweeping everything up that’s large, and everything that’s not gets picked up by the vacuum cleaner Louis plugs in upside down and pilots awkwardly with his other hand.

            The faucet goes on, and Louis literally sweeps every dish into it after dumping the entire bottle of dish soap into the water. Things look fairly neat at this point, and Louis looks around proudly to see that nothing is oozing, or crawling around his floor, or covered with mold. This is quite an improvement.

            Then he looks down and sees that he’s not wearing any pants.

            The doorbell rings as he’s trying to get his left leg in his tightest pair of jeans he owns, and he legitimately feels like he’s in a potato sack race as he hobbles over to the door with awkward leaps.

            Just as he’s three feet from the handle he completely loses his balance on something slippery and lands flat on his face. Looking to see the culprit, Louis sees a trail of soap suds trailing out of his sink, down the front, and running in a small stream over to where he stands.

            “It’s open,” he yells, not even trying to get up. The door swings open, and Harry stands wide-eyed and wrapped in a scarf, not quite sure what to make of Louis with his pants half on and soap all over the floor.

            “This isn’t what it looks like,” Louis says meekly, and then manages to worm his way over the wall so he can use it as a brace to finish putting his pants on. Harry surveys the apartment in the meantime.

            “Do you…uh…want me to shut the sink off?” he asks awkwardly. Louis looks at him for a minute, confused, and then answers with an  “Oh!” and then Harry goes over carefully and shuts off the sink and finds that it’s full of miraculously clean dishes and then offers to put them away, an offer that Louis can, in fact, not refuse.

            “Nice apartment,” Harry says while Louis puts the kettle on. He pans around slowly, taking all of it in, like he wants to take a picture of it and hang it in his head. His eyes cover every inch of every object, slowly absorbing the scene.

            “A bit too clean for my taste, though,” he comments as he walks over to the table to put his bag down.

 

* * * * * *

           

“Are you sure it’s not too hot?” Louis asks as Harry leans into his mug.

Harry shakes his head, taking a slow sip. “Nah, it’s perfect. I always liked a hot cuppa. Hated when it got too cold.”

Louis nods awkwardly and they just stare down at the table top for a little while. At first Louis is confused as to what he’s looking at, and then he realizes it’s the surface of the table; specifically, it’s the side Stan used to sit on, the side he covered with magazines and newspapers and topped with a vase of flowers and some bad memories.

“So, this whole art thing,” Harry says, putting the tea down and reaching into his leather bag for some papers. Louis nods and pushes his own mug slightly to the side to make room. Harry surfaces with a folder bursting with papers, and catches a piece of legal paper that lazily drifts to the floor.

“Think I might need a bigger folder,” he cracks, and Louis laughs a bit louder than he probably should, but Harry doesn’t seem to mind. He takes out a set of papers dealing with the seventeenth century art movements and lays them out on the table.

He stares at them for a while, and Louis joins him, not sure what to do.

“I lied,” Harry blurts out suddenly. It catches Louis by surprise, but he’s not sure what to do, so he just kind of stares at Harry.

“I really don’t need help with these pieces. I know them really well, actually. I really love the Baroque and Rococo periods. My mum’s obsessed with them.” Louis just stares at him, blankly.

“I wanted to see you,” Harry admits. Louis feels his face flush warm and red, and he smiles a little. His face clouds over once he sees how dejected Harry looks.

“Harry, what’s the matter?” he asks, leaning in slightly. Harry just turns to face the opposite direction and blinks for a while.

“Nothing, I’m fine.”

He looks up at Louis and meets his eyes. He knows they speak the same language.

 

* * * * * *

           

They sit on the balcony for a while, looking out at the lights stretching out before them and just thinking.

“I hate the city,” Louis says, leaning back into his chair and pulling his cup of tea closer. Harry looks at him inquisitively, so he continues, “I mean, I don’t hate the city itself, I just hate the light from it. Like, you can’t see the stars proper. It’s been forever since I’ve been able to just look up and see them.”

“My dad taught me all about the constellations when I was real little,” Harry says, looking up at the sky. “I used to know where Orion’s belt was, and I knew which one was the big and little dipper. And the Ursas and all that stuff too.”

He stays staring at the sky for a little bit. “I can’t find them anymore,” he says finally, and Louis knows exactly what he means.

“So why did you come here?” Louis asks. Harry looks hurt, so he quickly backtracks. “That sounded really bad, I’m sorry— ”

Harry brushes it off. “No, ‘s not your fault. It’s a good question, anyway.” He shifts in his chair and brings his lanky legs up to his chest and hugs them against him. He’s finished his tea already, which Louis didn’t think was possible.

“I dunno…I mean, after yesterday, and all that, I felt like we needed to clear the air.” Louis nods, and tries to look calm in spite of his internal panic. “It just wasn’t what you thought it was, that’s all. I wasn’t mad at you, or anything. I can’t make you not talk to Nick, that’s not fair.”

He turns to look at Louis and swallows hard. “I mean, of course, I’d like you to be with me, but if that’s not what you want—”

“No, I never said that,” Louis blurts out. It sounds rough, so he tries again. “I never said that’s what I wanted.”

Harry looks slightly stricken. “Oh. I mean, yeah. But I just assumed that’s what it was.”

Louis shakes his head. “No, no, I really didn’t mean it to happen like that. I mean, Nick keeps popping up in the weirdest places, like when I’m at work and stuff, and it’s just really weird, but it’s not like I invite him over or anything.”

For whatever reason, Harry looks relieved. “Oh. Okay.”

“Yeah,” Louis says, nodding. They sit in silence for a little while, looking up at the stars.

“Wait, so do you want to be with me?” Harry asks, abruptly.

Louis doesn’t know what to say, or even quite what Harry just said, so he kind of looks at him funny and Harry looks like a deer trapped in a light show or something by the way he’s shriveling up into himself with awkwardness.

“I mean, do you want to like, try the date thing again,” Harry chokes out. It sounds so awkward, and like he’s chewing on gravel, but Louis doesn’t really care.

“…Yeah,” he says, trying to process what’s happening. “Yeah, yeah, I do. That sounds nice.” Harry’s face is the best thing in the world.

“Awesome! I mean, yeah! Cool. Great, awesome.”

They smile at each other awkwardly and then go back to hunting for the stars. After a few moments of looking, Louis points off to the east.

“Is that Orion?” he asks. Harry studies the sky for a few minutes, and then nods slowly, inspecting the darkness.

“Yeah,” he says. “I think it is.”

 

* * * * * *

 

Harry’s shift at the bar starts at eleven and it’s ten thirty so he figures he’d better get out of there before he gets caught in traffic and is late and then gets fired, so he gets his stuff together and puts his teacup in the sink without washing it and Louis feels like this apartment is breathing again.

“Thanks for this,” Harry says at the door. Louis nods, hugging his cardigan tighter around him and smiling at Harry.

“Yeah, sure, anytime,” he says, doing that awkward thing he used to do in middle school when one of his parents’ friends wanted to talk to him and he’d just kind of wave at the air and be weird.

“Well, uh, I’d best be off,” Harry says. “Thanks again.” He smiles and gently swings the door open, stepping out into the hall.

Suddenly Louis can’t think and he’s seeing purple and kaleidoscopes of color and possibility and the future and tasting tea on his lips and watching flowers bloom into something he’s never seen before and so he just kind of says “Wait”.

Harry turns back, eyes wide with curiosity and innocence. He looks uncorrupted, still pure. Much younger than Louis. Louis thinks his eyes tell stories, show how old he really is behind it all.

Louis grabs him by the arm and pulls him back into the apartment. Harry looks at him, doe-eyed and breathless, and then Louis is tasting Harry and Harry is tasting Louis and their lips are setting off fireworks inside of the tiny apartment and it’s loud in the best way possible and it makes Louis feel so dizzy and so weightless, like if he took his lips off of Harry’s he’d just float away into nothingness.

They break away for air, gasping for it before diving back in again. Louis runs his hands over Harry’s back, drags his palms over the rough wool of his sweater and then onto the smooth denim of his jeans before burying his face in Harry’s neck and kissing slow and long and perfectly and Harry moans in this perfect little “oh” that makes Louis feel like the entire world hinges on how this boy whose face and whose heart is his feels.

With the hand not pulling Harry closer to him, he walks slowly down his front, slipping further south before squeezing between his jeans and his tented boxers, already slick with sweat and precum. He kneads it gently and Harry literally growls, so he presses harder and Harry arches into him and slams his crotch into Louis’ own, already rock hard, and they just keep smashing into each other.

Louis finally breaks into a moan, so low and throaty he barely hears it, and Harry takes that opportunity to go to work on Louis’ ear. He has no idea how Harry knows that that’s his most sensitive area, that the skin around there gets him crazy, and suddenly he’s harder than he ever thought possible and he just wants to get out of these jeans so he can take some of the pressure off.

He pulls Harry over the couch and throws him down on it, not pausing to rip his sweater off over his head and kiss his way down his torso. It’s beautiful and smooth and toned and just rough enough that it makes him keep going, further and further, til he’s slipping Harry’s pants off and freeing his throbbing member from the damp tightness of his underwear.

Gently, he tugs on it, and elicits a moan from Harry. He keeps going, working up a rhythm that Harry matches with huffs and groans. He smooths his other hand all over Harry, before he notices that there are two birthmarks on Harry’s chest.

“Harry Styles, do you have four nipples?” he asks. Not missing a beat, Harry responds breathlessly, “Louis Tomlinson, if you take your hand off of my cock one more time I’ll kill you.” Louis nods and goes back to work.

Within a matter of seconds he feels Harry’s body tense up and his breathing get faster. He arches his back slightly and grunts, shooting all over his own chest. It’s so hot, Louis has no choice but to rip open his own jeans and stroke himself off, only twice, before blowing his own load all over Harry too.

They collapse next to each other on the couch, breathless and panting. Harry closes his eyes while he catches his breath, rubbing one finger lazily through the sticky mess coating his chest. Louis, still fully clothed, feels like he’s just run a marathon.

Neither one of them says anything, but they just lay there until their breathing slows back to normal and then Harry puts his pants back on and goes into Louis’ bathroom to fix his hair while Louis just lies on the couch and stares at the ceiling.

Harry emerges from the bathroom in a few minutes, smoothing down his rumpled sweater, looking at Louis.

“Was that like…okay?” he asks finally. Louis doesn’t move.

“More than,” he says through a throat thick with exhaustion and…happiness? He hasn’t tasted that in a while. Maybe he’s forgotten what that’s like.

Harry walks over the door. “Alright, now I’d really better go. I’m so gonna be late if I don’t get a move on.” Louis laughs and sits up, hair mussed up.

“Okay Styles,” he says, getting up to give him another kiss.

This one is different. It’s so much better, so much more real. It tastes like everything a kiss should taste like. Love instead of lust, forever instead of just one moment, hope instead of desperation. When they break away again, Louis feels just as winded as he did from Harry before.

“Talk to you later, then?” Harry says. Louis nods, slightly sheepishly, like his girl friends in high school would do after coming out of bedrooms at parties, disheveled and holding their boyfriend’s hand.

After he leaves, Louis flops back down on the couch, spent. Not just physically, but emotionally too, he feels taxed. He’s never felt so complete, so whole. Not even with Stan, maybe. It’s possible that all these years he was just holding himself back from something better than he could ever have imagined.

            He looks up at the clock. It’s just shy of eleven, but he’s not tired, even after an exhausting week at school. He feels like he’s been zapped with electricity, like he could run a marathon or something. Putting on his shoes, he decides to go for a walk.

            Outside, Louis has no idea where to go, but he doesn’t care. He meanders for a while, exploring some side streets and passing by bars spilling patrons out onto the streets. He likes the variety: the jazz clubs, the discotheques, the raves. Each of them has some special life unlike any other.

            His phone vibrates from inside his pocket. He pulls it out to check the time: just past twenty three thirty. Still early for a Friday.

            _hey lou u wanna talk?_

Louis frowns at the screen. Who could this even be?

            _Um who is this?_ he types back.

A few moments later his phone vibrates again. _it’s nick_

Louis feels his heart catch in his throat. No, not Nick again. Not when things with Harry are going so well.

            _look nick this can’t go on i’m srry_

_what can’t go on?_

Louis looks confusedly down at his phone, then types again:

            _us or whatever this is_

There’s a long silence, where Louis is just standing in the middle of the sidewalk watching his breath turn to clouds in the cold fall air.

            _friends then?_

Louis doesn’t know what to say. He turns his phone off, puts it in his pocket, and heads for home.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this chapter is kinda shorter cause i'm falling asleep right now but 
> 
> ENJOY
> 
> love y'all <3 :D

            “Are you serious?” Zayn screams through a mouthful of ham sandwich, promptly bursting into a heavy coughing fit. Louis thumps him on the back a few times while he hacks away.

            “Don’t kill yourself, mate,” Louis says as he settles back into his chair for another few bites of his salad. Zayn wipes his eyes and finishes coughing awkwardly.

            “I just…I can’t get over this. I totally didn’t see this coming!” He looks at Louis, who looks back at him. “Okay, so maybe I totally did see this coming. But still! Not with someone you actually have feelings for!”

            Louis rolls his eyes. “Oh please. I totally had feelings for the other guys I’ve been with.”

            “By definition, a fuck and duck is not characterized by true feelings,” Zayn says, pointing a finger covered in honey mustard at Louis.

            “A fuck and duck? What the hell is that?” Louis asks. Zayn shrugs.

            “Dunno, sounded good though. Like you fuck the guy and then just leave right after.”

            Louis rolls his eyes again and groans audibly. “Oh please. I’ve only done that like five times.” Getting a look from Zayn, he amends the number. “Okay ten.” Zayn still doesn’t stop. “Okay, maybe like, twenty. Three.”

            “The fact that you counted is really sad,” Zayn says, chewing thoughtfully on a scrap of bread. “You totally look like a tool right now.”

            Louis looks shocked, albeit overdramatically so. “Do not!”

            Zayn laughs as he reaches for his bag of crisps. “Do so.”

            Luckily for both of them, the argument has no chance to continue as Liam walks in, followed closely by Niall.

            “Where’s Harry?” Louis asks, earning slightly confused and frightened stares from the two.

            “Uh, I think he’s just finishing some essays upstairs. Why?” Niall asks in a slightly incredulous, slightly frightened tone.

            “Oh nothi—”

            “Louis shagged Harry,” Zayn blurts out, and then slaps a hand over his mouth. Louis whirls on him, eyes blazing.

            “For real? Like proper shagged him?” Liam asks, sitting down in shock.

            “No,” Louis says, “Zayn’s just exaggerating for dramatic effect.”

            Niall takes a seat across the table. “Never really took Harry for that type,” he muses as he unpacks his sandwich.

            “Are you that type?” Zayn asks, slightly louder and much more creepily than he ever intended it to sound. Niall looks at him blankly, and then reddens.

            “Uh, well, I—”

            “Oh, look at the time!” Louis jumps in, earning thankful looks from both Niall and Zayn for his interventionist tactics. “I almost forgot, I have exams to give back today and I still have five or six left to grade.”

            “Want some help?” Liam asks, pushing his cold pizza off to the side. “I’ve only graded ten million other things today. One more can’t hurt.”

            “Yeah, if we split it up it’ll be over really quick,” Niall adds, rummaging through his bag for some pens.

            Louis smiles gratefully. “You guys are the best!” he says, hurrying over to his desk to grab the papers.

 

* * * * * *

 

            “You guys are the worst!” Louis howls ten minutes into grading. It’s taken them ten excruciating minutes to get through one page of a six page test, and they’re not even onto the written portion yet.

            “Well, I just want to be sure I’m doing this right,” Zayn says defensively, running over the letters with the end of a pen.

            Louis groans. “Zayn, it’s multiple choice. There’s one answer. It’s not that hard!”

            “I can’t figure out if this is a B or a D,” Niall says, turning the paper so Louis can see it. He looks at Niall with slight confusion and disdain.

            “Niall, it’s a B. The bump of a lower case B faces right, remember?”

            His face lights up with recognition. “Oh, yeah!” It clouds over again. “Wait, what?”

            “Sorry I’m late!”

            Louis looks up to see Harry struggling to get inside the room with one hand juggling a stack of essays and coffee and the other holding his lunch, mobile, and a copy of Hamlet. Everything in Louis’ world clicks into place, falls into order.

            “Need some help?” he asks, running over to grab the door for him. Harry smiles gratefully.

            “Thanks, Lou,” he says, setting down his things on the counter. He surveys the scene of the other three pouring over the tests. “What exactly is going on here?”

            Louis rolls his eyes and leans back against the counter in exasperation. “They’re helping me grade art history tests. Which is nice of them, except it’s taken them ten minutes to get through the multiple choice section!” He shouts the last part and earns a middle finger from Liam.

            “If you want me to, I can take one,” Harry says in that perfect quiet and meek and beautiful way he does that makes Louis’ heart turn to piles of goo.

            “Nah, I can’t make you do that,” Louis says, blushing. “Plus, you’ve got tons of your own work to do. Wouldn’t want to distract you.”

            Harry shrugs nonchalantly. “I don’t care, really. Plus apparently there’s some lecture being given to the first years over in the hall, so I’ve got the rest of my day free.”

            Louis’ heart skips a beat. Free periods mean more time with Harry.

            “You can, uh, chill here if you want to,” he offers. Harry’s face lights up.

            “For real? Ah, Lou, you’re the best!” he nearly squeals, drawing Louis into a tight hug. It feels electric and it slows Louis down, slows him down so he can see the world spinning around him and he is there, alone in Harry’s arms, just nothing but him and his eyes and his lips and they’re so perfectly frozen together in this space of nothingness.

            “So are you guys gonna kiss or what?” Zayn asks. Blushing, Louis and Harry pull away. Louis feels embarrassed and slightly angry that he got so wrapped up in this boy. Even if he isn’t just some boy. He’s that boy.

            “Aw, stuff it, Zayn,” Harry calls, eliciting laughs from all of them.

            “Are you a thing now?” Liam asks. Harry and Louis look at each other, not quite sure what to say.

            “Um, yeah,” Louis says finally, looking at Harry for approval. Harry smiles at him and nods encouragingly. Louis’ heart soars. “Yeah, we’re a thing now.”

            “Sorry to interrupt all of this warm and fuzzy shit but my cold pizza is getting cold and I’m only on question number nine and I don’t know any of this shit,” Niall says.

            Louis rolls his eyes, but Harry laughs.

            “C’mon, let’s go. Time to socialize,” he says in a mockingly scholastic tone, and Louis lets him hold his hand the whole five feet to the table.

 

* * * * *

 

            The rest of the afternoon is literally perfect. Louis spends his last two periods teaching, and Harry sits in the back and changes slides for him and draws pictures on notebook paper while Louis lectures and cracks jokes which make the kids laugh and then Louis yells at him for disrupting class and the kids laugh even harder and it’s wonderful and Louis can’t get enough.

            “Anybody know what this piece is?” Louis asks as Harry settles on the wedding portrait of a couple from Pompeii. Nobody knows the answer, of course, but Harry raises his hand like an eager schoolkid, putting the whole class in stitches.

            “Yes, Mr. Styles?” Louis asks, unable to wipe the smile off of his own face.

            “Two people doing things in Rome,” Harry answers triumphantly. Everyone breaks into laughter at this, including Louis.

            “Clever, but slightly wrong,” Louis says through laughs. Harry pouts, but reveals the title and information about the piece.

            “This is called a veristic portrait,” Louis explains. “Remember in Greece, when everyone wanted to create the ideal human being, totally perfect in every way?” Luckily, most of the class nods. Thank god they remember something. “This is the exact opposite. They want their portraits to show the real person, even if it means exaggerating even more obvious features.”

            One boy raises his hand, and Louis calls on him. “So how is this veristic?”

            “Good question,” Louis acknowledges. “The woman is clearly literate, because she’s holding a stylus and tablet, both of which indicate that she is clearly able to write and most likely read. The husband is of a high political stature because of the clothes he wears.”

            “They’re also in love,” Harry adds. Everyone turns to look at them. “You can tell by the way they’re posed so comfortably with each other. So many other couples are all stiff and robotic, but these two, they’re just so…natural. Like they breathe each other and get exactly how to stand and what to do and who to be. There aren’t any questions asked.”

            He levels his gaze at Louis, and looks right into his eyes. Louis feels cornered in the best way possible. “It’s real, and it’s raw, and it may not be perfect, but it’s there.”

            Louis nods. “Yeah…it’s definitely real.” He smiles at Harry, and Harry smiles back.

            The rest of the hour flies by as they discuss the construction of the Colosseum and how the barrel vaults were used to construct these incredibly ambitious architectural masterpieces and then the bell rings and everyone files out to go home.

            Louis puts the chairs up on the desk and opens the cabinets holding the art supplies so he can rearrange the drawers to make sure everything’s in its proper place while Harry spins in his desk chair. He’s gathering up his papers when he thinks of it.

            “Wanna go to the beach?”

 

* * * * *

 

            “Do you do this often?” Harry asks, taking a sip of the pinot they bought on the way. Louis laughs to himself, pulling his other knee up onto the hood of his car they’re sitting on.

            “More than I probably should, yeah.” He looks into the sunset. “It’s my good place though. It makes me feel grounded.”

            Harry nods. “I get that.”

            They sit on the hood for a while and pass the wine back and forth and listen to the music filtering out of Louis’ static-filled radio for a while.

            “Tell me something about yourself,” Harry says finally. When Louis looks confused, he elaborates, “I mean, something that you think I should know. Something that most people don’t, but that makes you who you are.”

            Louis thinks for a bit, then shrugs. “I’m not really sure…”

            “Want me to go first?” Harry asks, and Louis nods.

            Harry settles back on his hands and looks off into the sun. Louis looks at his silhouette in the setting sun and it breaks his heart.

            “Okay, well,” Harry says, “I don’t know how to explain this, but…”

            When Louis just looks at him, he looks harder for the words. “You know how I’m always really weird about stuff? Like, my room, how it’s super neat and organized and stuff?” Louis nods. Harry’s room is meticulous, and he always teases him about how every paper has its own file and label and color-coded post-it note.

            “Well, it’s because I have OCD. Like, the legit Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.” He takes a swig from the bottle, and then points at it. “Like, I’ve been counting how many times I’ve taken a drink from this thing. It has to be less than forty but more than twenty-five. Currently at thirty-seven, so I’m getting close.”

            Louis nods. “That makes a lot of sense.” Harry nods too.

            “Yep, makes me a bit easier to figure out.”

            Louis laughs awkwardly and scratches the back of his head. “So, I guess it’s my turn now?” Harry nods, and Louis goes back to thinking.

            Should he tell him? Is it worth it? What would he say to it?

            “So, this might be kind of a dealbreaker,” he begins, and Harry laughs.

            “Unless you’re telling me you’re secretly a big fan of pussy, I’m not gonna ditch you that quick.” Louis laughs and tries to rephrase it.

            “Well, it’s not the best situation ever. At all. Like, ever.” Harry looks at him expectantly. Louis sighs and ruffles a hand through his hair.

            He doesn’t know if it’s worth it. He really likes Harry, and he’s not sure he can afford to screw this one up. And this could screw this one up. Which would not be good.

            “Just tell me, Lou,” Harry says. “Promise I won’t judge you.”

            Louis shakes his head. “You can’t promise that. You shouldn’t.”

            Harry frowns and turns to face Louis head-on. “What do you mean?”

            “I mean that I’m not worth promises, it’s not a good idea to make them because they always get broken,” Louis says. Harry looks more concerned.

            “You are worth promises, and I won’t break them. At least, I’ll try not to,” Harry tries, but Louis just shakes his head more firmly.

            “No,” he insists, and Harry grabs his hand.

            “Just tell me, Lou, I’ll try to understand,” he says, but Louis refuses.

            “I’m not doing this to you.”

            “Louis, come on,” Harry pleads. “I’m not gonna give on you because of…whatever it is.” Louis feels like he might cry.

            “I can’t.”

            “Louis, please?”

            “No, I—”

            “Lou, come on, babe.”

            “Harry, I—”

            “Just tell me, I promise I’ll be fine.”

            “Fine,” Louis shouts, throwing Harry’s hand down. “You want to know my big fat dirty secret? Huh? Wanna know what I’ve been hiding from you? What I don’t want to tell you?” Harry doesn’t say anything, but Louis forges ahead before he turns back.

            “I was engaged, okay? Engaged.” He throws up a hand. “There was a ring on this finger. I was going to get married. June fifteenth of this year was supposed to be the happiest day of my life.”

            Harry just looks sad. “Why—”

            “I chickened out,” Louis says, somewhat shamefully. “I couldn’t go through with it. I couldn’t be tied down to him like that, because I knew he’d run away from me once he saw what I’d be like, and he couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t.”

            Harry grabs Louis’ face in his hands and holds it to his.

            “Listen to me, Louis,” he breathes. “Listen. I will never run away from you, no matter who you are. You’re so important to me and so perfect and so…fucking messed up, like me, and I can’t afford to let that go. I can’t do it, and I won’t. I’ll be here forever, I swear to you, I won’t leave you. It’s not going to happen, Lou, I promise.”

            Louis nods through tears. “Okay.”

            “Do you promise too?” Harry asks.

            “Promise what?”

            “Promise to be the best you can be, even if that means being less than perfect. Just let me in and let me see you and I’ll accept you, you just have to let me in.” Louis just keeps crying and he sees Harry crying too. “Let me in, Louis.”

            Louis nods, swallowing past the lump in his throat. “I’ll let you in, Harry. I will.”

            “Promise?” Harry asks.

            “Promise,” Louis whispers, and pulls Harry into a kiss tasting of possibility and life and perfection.   


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mwahahahahaha nick comes to screw things up
> 
> song mentioned is nat king cole's "what'll i do". it's really pretty, y'all should look it up.
> 
> THANK YOU for the kudos and page views and comments i love you all so much <3

That Friday, Harry comes to Louis’ flat and they sit on his couch and watch old episodes of Doctor Who and drink cheap wine and eat pizza bagels and kiss and talk about life and it’s the happiest Louis has ever been in years.

            It’s been too long since Louis felt that way. Even when he was still with Stan, when Stan had proposed to him, when he had moved in and unpacked a bag and hung up his pictures and all of that, he still wasn’t this happy. For whatever it was worth, his life with Stan had been good. And this was great. No, it was incredible. It was perfect.

            They sit up all night like that, going through boxes of frozen food and cases of wine until they’re both more than slightly tipsy and full with all sorts of slightly disgusting things lying on the couch together while bad advertisements flash across the telly.

            “So when did you like me?” Harry slurs at two something in the morning. Louis laughs and pokes him in the face, unintentionally.

            “Waddas that even mean?” he asks. Harry shrugs as much as one can shrug while lying down. He then dissolves into a fit of laughter and tries to explain (unsuccessfully) that he was trying to shrug sitting down and Louis just has to smack him again and keep talking.

            “Well, I dunno, I mean, I just like…saw you, and then I just decided –” At that, Louis and Harry both get hysterical.

            “What are you even saying?” Harry cackles. Louis shakes his head, unable to even answer back.

            “I have no bloody clue!” Harry dramatically slaps a hand over his mouth and points with the other at Louis.

            “Language, mister!” he slurs, then continues with “There are children around!” Louis starts laughing even harder, and both he and Harry start convulsing on the couch.

            “Am I the child?” Louis finally manages, and Harry nods, practically burping out a giggle.

            “You’re short enough to be one, anyway,” he responds.

            Hauling himself up from his reclining position, Louis grabs the nearest pillow and smacks Harry with it teasingly.

            “Ow!” Harry yelps, grabbing another pillow to hit Louis back. Louis starts smacking back, and Harry retaliates, and it soon turns into a humongous pillow fight unlike any other Louis’d ever had in his whole life.

            Feathers are flying everywhere, and they’re laughing hysterically, and finally just end up rolling in the mess and kissing and kissing and kissing until they can no longer breathe.

 

* * * * * *

 

            The next morning, Louis wakes up to find Harry cradled in his arms on the floor of his living room. They’re lying in the feathers and the spilled wine and a little bit of pizza sauce and Louis just laughs to himself that this is how they’ve ended up.

            His laughter stirs Harry awake, who stretches like a cat, all limbs pointed down, extending outwards and a tongue curling yawn that Louis is obsessed with.

            “Hey, sleepy head,” he says. Harry looks at him through a mess of curls. Extending one finger, he rubs Louis’ bangs lazily and sticks it in his mouth.

            “Pizza sauce,” he says in response to Louis’ inquisitive look. With another stretch, he gets up and waddles over to the kitchen, where he puts the kettle on.

            “Any clue how we ended up down here?” Louis asks, one hand on his head to dull the slight throbbing occupying its front. He narrowly avoids setting his elbow down on top of an overturned wine glass that’s chipped on one side. Seeing something flash from the corner of his eye, he realizes the telly’s still on.

            “Nope, not a bloody hint,” Harry says from the stove. His voice is throaty and gruff, and Louis immediately thinks how ridiculously sexy it is.

            He sits up finally, and turns his mum’s old record player on. One of his old Nat King Cole LPs starts playing, with an all too familiar static from how much he used to play it when he was younger.

            _What’ll I do, when you are far away, and I’m so blue? What’ll I do?_

Harry walks over to the table and puts two mugs down, then roots through the cabinets for a frying pan. Louis watches with pure contentment as Harry gets two eggs out of the fridge, and some cheese, putting everything together to make omelets. He looks so determined, his brow furrowed and his lanky limbs resting awkwardly over the side of the stove, back hunched just slightly in concentration.

            “I love you,” Louis blurts out.

            Harry turns around over his shoulder, still stirring the eggs, and smiles. “Love you too,” he says.

 

* * * * *

 

            “So what do you have to do this weekend, school-wise?” Louis asks before taking a bite of his omelet. Harry thinks for a second as he chews, then shrugs.

            “Dunno. I mean, marks are due pretty soon and all that. I think I still have another trillion or so essays to go through before then, but nothing major.” Louis laughs, and nods understandingly.

            “Same here. Deciding to give that project on Roman veristic portraits wasn’t exactly a smart idea.”

            Harry looks at him above the brim of his mug. “You know, I never really had anything like this growing up.”

            “Like what?” Louis asks as he cuts off a portion of egg with the side of his fork.

            “Like…” Harry tries, and just looks awkwardly at the floor. “I dunno, I mean, these slow Saturday mornings where everything feels like it’s still asleep and you have the entire world at your fingertips. Never really did that in my house.”

            Louis nods. “Yeah, me not having a dad never really helped that.” Harry reaches across the table and takes his hand. Surprised, Louis surrenders to his touch, and lets him rub his fingers over the top his hand, smoothly, and with such love it breaks his heart.

            “I like that we do this, here. In our house.”

            Louis looks up at the last part. “Our house?”

            Harry nods hesitantly. “I mean, if it’s alright with you. If it’s not I totally understand, I was just thinking that, you know, since we’re –”

            “No, of course,” Louis jumps in. “Yeah, that’s awesome.”

            “Really?” Harry asks, breathlessly.

            Louis nods, smiling. “Really.” Harry leans over and kisses him on the lips, full, and sweet and tender. It makes everything Stan froze inside of him melt to nothing.

            “I should really get moving though,” Louis says, somewhat awkwardly. Harry nods, letting go of his hand. “I have to stock the fridge and get another set of sheets and towels and stuff.”

            “Want me to come with?” Harry asks. Louis shrugs and shakes his head.

            “Nah, you’ve got a ton of work to do. It’ll be good to get some peace and quiet. Plus, I’m quite the distraction.”

            Harry grins and bats at him. Louis jumps back with a laugh and heads to the bathroom to get ready.  As he throws water on his face and looks at his reflection in the mirror, he’s surprised to see how scared he looks.

 

* * * * *

 

            At the Tesco a few blocks over, Louis is pouring over the frozen food section when he feels someone grab his arse.

            “Oy, waddaya think you’re doing?” he yelps, and whirls around to see none other than Nick. “Oh, it’s you. Again,” he groans, rolling his eyes and slamming the freezer door shut.

            “Great reaction,” Nick says with a grin. “Thought you were gonna jump right out of them jeans for sure.”

            Louis growls under his breath. “You wish,” he snaps, and keeps walking down the row, looking at the food on both sides. Nick tails him, close behind, trying to get in front of his path.

            “I do, actually,” he replies cheekily, and Louis rolls his eyes.

            “You’re not even subtle about it,” he grumbles, turning down the bakery aisle. Nick runs ahead of him and walks backwards so he can face Louis and talk to him.

            “Nope, I’m not,” he says. “Also, are you doing anything tonight?”

            “Are you asking me on a date?” Louis asks sharply. Nick laughs.

            “Am I?” Right as he finishes saying this, he walks right into a display of cheese graters and topples the whole thing over. Louis tries very hard not to laugh, but pushes himself forward to leave Nick behind.

            “I did that on purpose!” Nick calls from where he lays. Louis rolls his eyes, but has a grin on his face he doesn’t bother to hide now that Nick can’t actually see him. He’s kind of surprised at how funny Nick is. Maybe it’s because he always saw him as more of a pest before, but he’s not half bad. Half bad. Note the half part.

            Hearing footsteps behind him, he turns to see Nick has clearly recovered from his tumble and is now trying to catch up.

            “What do you want?” Louis asks, overly dramatic and exasperated.

            Nick grins sheepishly, and gets down on one knee. Louis rolls his eyes and literally screams an “oh come on” much to his own embarrassment when everyone around him looks to see what the commotion is.

            “Go on a date with me? Please?” Nick asks, taking Louis’ hand. Louis shakes him off and starts walking again.

            “I have a boyfriend,” he says. Nick tries to pass him on the left, but runs into an old lady and her shopping cart and is held up by her verbal assault.

            “Yeah, I know all that,” he continues once he escapes her wrath. “And I quite frankly don’t care.”

            Louis scoffs openly and turns down the cleaning supplies section. “Clearly. Otherwise you’d just leave me alone like I asked you to.”

            “Where would the fun be in that?” Nick asks, nearly taking out another display in his attempt to quickly round the corner before Louis can evade him.

            “We live together now, you know,” Louis says, spinning around to face him. “It’s not just some little fling, we’re really serious.”

            Nick puts on an exaggeratedly pouty face. “Well you certainly don’t look too happy about it.”

            Louis is startled. Is he really that upset? Does he look upset? He tries to covertly feel his own face for his expression by pretending he has a large itch stretching across the diameter or his head. Clearly he’s mastered the art of subtlety.

            “I’m not upset,” he chokes out (which he in fact just refuted himself by feeling the sag under his eyes, the tightness of his own lips, how dry his mouth is).

            “Well you’d have fooled me,” Nick says with a shrug. “All I’m saying is that if you’re having this conversation with me, you should probably think this through a little bit more.”

            Louis tightens even more, if such a thing is possible. “I have thought this through, actually. I’m quite confident in what I’m doing and I think it’s the best thing for me.”

            Nick looks at him with a cocked eyebrow. “So how long have you two been dating, then?”

            Louis looks at his feet and scuffs his shoe over an ad clinging to the tile floor. “I dunno, like, three weeks.” Nick laughs out loud.

            “Three weeks? And you’re moving in together? This is clearly some romance.” Louis just shrugs. Why can’t he defend himself? Why can’t he defend Harry, at the very least? Sure, the idea was impulsive, but that made it fun. Plus it wasn’t like it’d be a big burden or anything. Harry barely took up any space, and it was no problem for either of them. So why was Nick so systematically tearing down his entire plan?

            “I mean, it’s no big deal,” Louis tries, but clearly Nick can tell he’s not sold on his own argument. He looks skeptically at Louis and just sighs, staring up at the fluorescent lights.

            “Look, it may not always seem like I do, but I really care about you, Louis,” he tries. Louis scoffs for what seems like the ten thousandth time in two minutes, but Nick butts in. “I’m serious! I really do like you, and for whatever it’s worth I want what’s best for you.”

            He takes Louis by the forearm and electricity shoots through his whole body. Since when did Nick Grimshaw give him that feeling? “Just make sure you’ve thought this whole thing through. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

            Louis nods, albeit stiffly. “I know. I don’t want to get hurt either.”

            Nick shrugs, as if the whole thing is common sense. “So, just go back and think about it for a while before you commit to anything. You have a whole life ahead of you, there’s no reason why you have to tie yourself down to anyone.”

            When he thinks about it, that was the reason Louis called off the engagement with Stan. Even though it was horrible, and he’ll never be able to forget how sad and distraught Stan looked when he told him he couldn’t go through with it, Louis knows it was for the best. He’s only in his twenties, and there’s no reason he has to go changing his name and wearing rings and taking out mortgages and raising kids or anything. This was the time he was supposed to be doing dumb things and hooking up with a shit ton of people and living alone and enjoying it before he had to put down real roots.

            “I dunno, maybe you have a point,” he admits begrudgingly. Nick grins.

            “See? I’m not totally stupid,” he says teasingly, and Louis genuinely smiles for once. “You’re young, and you’re supposed to be rash. But still. Not _that_ rash.” With a grin, he turns to leave.

            Louis smiles to himself, and gets ready to head over to the fruit and vegetable section.

            “Oh Lou?” he hears from down the aisle. Looking behind him, he sees Nick lingering at the end of the row. “If you wanna go on that date or something, just call me.”

            “Stuff it, Grimshaw,” Louis calls back with a grin. Nick smiles in return.

            “I’ll take that as a maybe,” Nick says with a thumbs up, and disappears around the corner. For better or for worse, Louis is willing to leave it at that.

* * * * *

 

            Once he’s finished getting his groceries, Louis drives over to the nearest home goods store and parks his sputtering car. Even though he probably should have reversed the order he visited these in, he figures it’ll be a quick trip in to grab more towels and then he can just duck out again.

            Walking in, he’s bombarded with the sound of late nineties era Celine Dion and the smell of what seems to be a lavender grenade. So, essentially, his house, but neater.

            Taking a basket, he sets off down the long rows of tapestries and linens in search of the towels and other toiletries. If he were being honest with himself, he’s slightly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of things, and everything he’s never thought of before to get. Did Harry need a separate bathmat? Would he have to get more rags for the kitchen?

            “Can I help you with anything?” a sales associate asks him. Taken slightly aback, Louis stammers for a good half a minute before getting himself together.

            “Sorry ‘bout that,” he says. “Do you know where the stuff for the loo is? Like, towels and all that?”

            The sales lady smiles kindly. “Sure, right this way.” She leads him through a maze of white and blue and rubber ducks and bubbles and even some slightly sinister looking clowns that Louis has to sear out of his memory for the benefit of his remaining mental development.

            “Here we are!” she proclaims, stopping in front of a two story tall shelving unit filled with various types of towels. “Now, what exactly are you looking for? Monograms? Towels for you and the wife? Seasonal? Patterns? Stripes? Any particular color? Fabric? There—”

            “I think I’m good, thank you,” Louis yelps, majorly overwhelmed. “I just need a minute to take this all in.” The sales lady nods and disappears behind another shelving unit on the opposite side of the aisle.

            Taking a deep breath, Louis scans the massive structure standing before him. _There must be thousands of towels there_ , he thinks. There’s no way he can ever do this. It’s just not going to happen. Part of him is surprised he’s having this reaction, considering when Stan moved in he never felt this way, but then he remembers he’d never been proposed to before Stan moved in, and would have had no reason to be so ridiculously anxious about sharing a living space with someone and making this kind of a commitment.

            Louis literally has to put his head between his knees and breathe deeply for a few minutes to get himself back together, but once he does he just gives up and decides to head for home. Towels can wait, he has to call this off.

            It’s not that he doesn’t love Harry, because he does. Well, love is a very strong word. Like is much better. It’s not that he doesn’t _like_ Harry, because he does. That’s better. It’s just that this is a big deal, sharing your home with somebody. Especially, like Nick said, somebody that you’ve only known for a month and a half and only dated for a good three weeks. That’s a huge commitment and there’s no way that it’s the right way. Plus, if he were being honest with himself (which he apparently is right now), he would say that his conversation with Nick did have something to do with it.

            Maybe he misjudged Nick. Maybe he’s not such a bad guy.

            Pulling into his parking space, Louis gathers all of the groceries into one arm and fumbles with the lock with the other. He takes a deep breath. He’s going to say it nicely. _Harry, we need to talk._ Yikes. Too scary sounding. He doesn’t have a flesh eating disease or anything.

            _Harry, I’m not sure if this is going to work._ Worse. Sounds like he’s a sixteen year old breaking up with his middle school girlfriend.

            _Harry, can I ask you something?_ Better. This way, it opens the door for a conversation, something he and Harry can discuss instead of Louis just telling him what’s going to happen.

            _Harry, can we talk about something? I really think it would be good if we worked a couple of things out._ Perfect. That way, it affirms that Louis is in no way going to destroy the relationship but still keeps the dialogue open.

            He finally manages to unlock the door, and turns the handle. With a deep inhalation, he swings open the door and gets ready.

            “Harry, can we—”

            But with that, he’s interrupted by barking (barking?) and something furry rubbing against him and then something wet on his foot and he looks down and there is a dog, no, a puppy (a puppy?) peeing on his foot (a puppy peeing? On his foot? These are nice shoes!) and then looks up to see Harry in nothing but underwear grinning at him with arms outstretched.

            “Surprise!” he says, and runs off to get the paper towels, puppy in tow.

            Maybe the commitment talk will have to wait until another time.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> puppy loveeeeee
> 
> thanks for all of the comments, kudos, and bookmarks!!! i love you allll <3333

At two o’clock in the morning, Louis is awoken by a puppy peeing on him. Before he even has time to react, it’s hopped down from the bed and scampered off into the hallway with a chew toy, squeaking merrily as it goes.

            Groaning, Louis gets up and strips off the third blanket of the night to be stained with dog urine, and hauls it over to the laundry area. Of course, Harry doesn’t even move, just lays there curled up in a ball.

            _Just my luck, I’ve had three comforters stained with dog piss in eight hours,_ Louis thinks as he crams it into the washer and takes the clean one over to the balcony so it can dry outside. The puppy runs after him, tripping over its own feet as it scampers and slides across the hardwoods. Louis quickly shuts the sliding door behind him, and is met with a look of extraordinarily sad puppy eyes.

            Begrudgingly, Louis opens the door and lets it out onto the balcony with him. It promptly runs over and squats to poop in the corner. At least it’s not inside the apartment. Yet.

            After Louis had come home with the groceries and found a puppy peeing on his shoe, he spent the next several hours trying to becoming a new parent. He spent two hours building a crate while Harry kept the puppy outside, and then spent another half an hour cleaning up the remains of the bed he’d placed inside that the puppy apparently didn’t like. Much to his chagrin, he spent another four hours getting food, cleaning supplies, toys, a leash, and everything one would ever need to have a dog while Harry took a nap because he was tired. Louis could have strangled him.

            The name was a whole other story. Harry had wanted to name it Snickerdoodle because of its brown and white blotchy coloring, and Louis hadn’t wanted a dog at all, and therefore wanted to call it Annie so the name would match its soon-to-be-orphan-status. Harry, of course, balked at this, pleaded with Louis, and then given him sad puppy eyes more upsetting than the sad puppy eyes of the actual puppy, and then Louis had rolled his eyes and agreed to keeping the puppy for a little while longer, which Harry took to mean forever with the name Snickerdoodle and now Louis is washing comforters at two o’clock in the morning.

            How glamorous.

            Leaning against the railing while he watched Snickerdoodle sniff the early morning air, Louis pulls out his phone and decides to text Nick.

            _guess who’s up at two in the morning cleaning up dog piss_

His phone buzzes while Snickerdoodle is in his arms because Louis is trying to stop her from barking at an airplane.

            _lol clearly that whole commitment talk went wellx_

Louis rolls his eyes, and goes inside with the dog to check on the comforter in the washer. Plus, it’s something like negative two outside, so there’s that.

            _came home to find this lovely puppy taking a fancy to my shoe_

He snaps a picture of Snickerdoodle curled up on the floor in front of the heat of the dryer, paws tucked over her eyes. He has to admit, she is really cute when she’s not urinating on his nice linens.

            _aww she’s a cute one!!!_ _J_

Louis is folding the comforter from the balcony up when his phone goes off again.

            _bet you’ll never guess what I’m doing_

_i bet i can_

_okay, so guess_

_i’m too tired to guess I have a dog, remember ??_

_okay true i’ll send a pic_

Snickerdoodle stretches and yawns, her tiny mouth opening as wide as it can go, and her tongue curling up into a perfect little roll. Louis chuckles to himself, and Snickerdoodle, annoyed, rolls over.

            _here ya goxxxxx_

Louis nearly curses out loud. The picture lighting up his screen is Nick, shirtless, posing next to a very attractive but very clearly drunk man lying next to him, partially clothed. Nick’s clearly getting a kick out of this, since he’s grinning like a madman.

            As he turns his phone off and climbs back into bed, Louis can’t understand why he feels a pang inside his chest. He and Nick aren’t an item, and never were. Plus, he hates Nick. Doesn’t he? Or does he? Suddenly everything he thought was locked in is being called into question.

            He looks over at Harry, compact, and curly, and all limbs. He thought Harry was a sure thing, but now he feels like he’s been flattened by a semi and then literally smacked with a puppy. Everything he was supposed to be doing is suddenly up in the air, every string he thought was forever untied is chained to the ground and he hates it, and he hates Harry for doing it to him.

            Suddenly Harry stirs, and rolls over so he’s facing Louis. His hair is a mess, and he looks like he’s falling into himself. There’s a big patch of drool coming out of the side of his mouth, and he keeps murmuring into his space.

            “Louis,” he says, and suddenly everything is okay. For now. Maybe with some sleep, Louis will be able to sleep better. Pulling the covers over himself, Louis settles in for a few more hours. Just before he closes his eyes, he hears a faint tinkling sound coming from the kitchen.

            He’ll get that later.

 

* * * * *

 

            “Someone slept great last night,” Harry says at breakfast the next morning, reaching beneath the table to tug on a rope toy larger than Snickerdoodle’s whole head. She growls playfully and pulls back.

            “Yeah, that makes one of us,” Louis grumbles from the stove, spooning more eggs onto his plate and searching for another glass for some orange juice.

            “Aw, c’mon, you gotta admit she’s cute!” Harry hollers from the table. Louis rolls his eyes, glad his boyfriend can’t see him.

            His boyfriend. He’s not sure if he likes that.

            “Not when she’s peeing on your comforter at two in the morning,” Louis snaps. Snickerdoodle looks at him from the side as she wrestles with Harry for her toy.

            Harry laughs, adding a “You’re a riot, Lou,” as he tosses the rope and Snickerdoodle goes bounding after it. Louis doesn’t even justify that with a response.

            He sits down and rubs his eyes. Overall, he maybe got three hours of sleep, four if he’s being generous. He can barely sit up, let alone try to be pleasant about this annoying dog who ruined his sleep pattern.

            “So, did you want to talk about something yesterday?” Harry asks after petting a triumphant Snickerdoodle, ball in mouth. “You seemed like you were on the verge of saying something important, but you never did.”

            For a minute or two, Louis debates whether or not it’s actually worth it to say it or not. Then he remembers how Harry dumped a puppy in his apartment, not theirs, and didn’t ask, and how he was only running on two hours of sleep, and—

            “Nah, ‘twas nothin’,” Louis grumbles, forking more eggs into his mouth.

            Luckily for his health, Harry decides he’ll take the dog for a little walk, giving Louis twenty or so minutes of peace.

            Pulling out his phone again, Louis checks through his texts last night from Nick. And maybe it’s because he only has a limited amount of sleep, and maybe it’s because he just doesn’t care anymore, but he throws on a jacket, grabs his keys, and calls him for directions.

 

* * * * *

 

            Nick answers the door in sweatpants, the hint of a J. Crew underwear label poking up from beneath the waistband. Louis pretends not to notice it, and definitely pretends not to like it. At all.

            “Not gonna lie, ‘m kinda surprised you decided to come over,” Nick says as Louis walks inside. Louis doesn’t respond, because he’s too busy trying to take in everything that’s happening right now in this apartment.

            First off, it’s massive, at least three times the size of Louis’ own flat. The living space is as big as Louis’ entire bedroom, and flows beautifully into a brand new kitchen. On the walls of the den hang signed posters from a variety of artists, ranging from Madonna to Mick Jagger. Hanging next to each is a framed photograph of Nick posing at Radio 1 with each person.

            A signed guitar hangs on an angle over the couch, bearing the silver Sharpie mark of Paul McCartney himself, and on the wall above the dining room table are the original chords to “Here Comes The Sun” to match. The kitchen itself has a black and white music-esque theme, with alternating tiles, and some arranged to form various musical symbols. The clock above the stove is an Elvis, with each rotating arm functioning as the hour or minute hand.

            The bedroom door is shut, but the guest room across the hall is dominated by a series of backstage photos with the likes of Girls Aloud, Lady Gaga, and Rita Ora. The small telly on a table in the corner sits alongside a framed photo of him and Sharon from EastEnders.

            According to Nick, the bathroom lies inside the master bedroom, and the guest room’s bathroom is under repairs, so Louis gets to see the office space, which features the largest touch screen computer he’s ever seen in his whole life, a mixing station, and even a recording booth Nick says was taken from Marvin’s Room.

            There’s a balcony too, but it makes Louis’ look like a piece of metal strapped to the side of a trailer. Nick’s is expansive, looking out over the expansive city below him. It’s big enough that he can fit a table and chairs out there, and he’s strung Christmas lights above a worn couch adorned by ivy that’s climbed up the walls from down below.

            “Well? What do you think?” Nick asks when they go back to the den.

            Louis can hardly find the words. “It’s…”

            “Spectacular? Pefect? Amazing?” Nick butts in. “All of the above?”

            Louis rolls his eyes as he laughs. “Very funny, Grimshaw.”

            Nick grins in that way that Louis never noticed before but feels like he could get used to. It’s charming, and slightly offputting, but in a good way.

            “Oh, forgot to tell you, I’ve got two tickets to see Cheryl Cole if you wanna come.” Louis’ jaw drops.

            “How did you know Cheryl’s my absolute favorite ever? Well, besides Billie Piper. And Geri Halliwell. And Nicola. Love Nicola.”

            Nick laughs, rolling his eyes teasingly. Louis feels his phone vibrate, but he ignores it. “I know things, Tomlinson. You’d be surprised.”

            “But seriously, I’d love to go!” Louis says, trying to hide just how excited he is. Nick smiles again.

            “I figured. Sweet, so the concert’s this Friday at nine-thirty. I’ll pick you up?” Louis nods, smiling.

            “Sounds good!” he says, before realizing he’s just committed to going on a date with Nick Grimshaw. The weirder thing is, he’s not even upset about it. He might even be excited.

            His phone rings again. Louis debates turning his phone off, but settles on just ignoring the call from inside his pocket.

            Nick offers him a cuppa, and Louis obliges, mostly because he has to drive back to his apartment without crashing and/or falling asleep at the wheel, so he’s glad to take whatever caffeine fix he can get.

            His phone rings for a third time, and Louis groans as he takes it out of his pocket to look at it. It’s Harry, and he has two missed calls with accompanying voicemails.

            “Who’s that?” Nick asks from the stove.

            “Uh, business,” Louis flubs, and excuses himself to answer it outside. “Hello? Harry, what is it?”

            “I lost the dog,” Harry blurts from the other side of the line. He sounds out of breath and panicked and like he’s been crying.

            “You what?” Louis asks.

            “I lost the dog,” Harry repeats. “We were walking and I let her off the leash so she could run around a little and then she saw a squirrel and she just took off and I have no idea where she went and I’m like freaking out and—”

            “Okay, calm down, I can barely understand you,” Louis says. “I’ll be right there, we’ll find her, I promise.”

            He hangs up and heads back in to see Nick with a travel mug, standing at the door.

            “It’s him, isn’t it?” Nick asks. “I figured it was.” Louis doesn’t need to say anything, just gratefully accepts the warm mug filled with tea from him.

            “Thank you. Your place is beautiful,” Louis says, shrugging his coat back on.

            Nick smiles, albeit a bid sadly. “You should visit more often,” he says, but Louis is already out the door.

 

* * * * *

 

            When Louis pulls up to the apartment complex, it’s pouring rain and Harry is outside in a t-shirt and boxer shorts screaming with his hands cupped around his mouth. His curly hair clings to itself and the surface of his head.

            “Snickerdoodle! Snickerdoodle!” he shouts, running a hand through his hair with exasperation. Louis runs over to Harry, arms tight across his chest, already soaked through with rainwater.

            “Harry, what happened?” he asks. Harry doesn’t say anything, just keeps pacing and shouting for the dog over and over again.

            “Harry, it’s not going to know its name, we’ve only had it for a day,” Louis says, but Harry doesn’t seem to hear him, just keeps calling and calling and calling.

            Louis decides it’s pointless to keep trying and just decides to wander around and start calling for the dog.

            “Snickerdoodle!” he shouts as he walks the length of the parking lot. “Oh, Snickers! Where are you, baby girl?” Harry seems to echo his calls from across the carpark, and Louis moves further up the length of the sidewalk.

            An half an hour after the phone call, Louis is literally freezing from the rain and soaked completely through. Harry is still standing in the same spot, calling for the dog over and over again.

            “Haz, come on in and go get dried off,” Louis says, but Harry throws him off. Both of them are surprised by how forcefully Harry shoves Louis’ hand off of his shoulder, but it happens and they just have to roll with it.

            “No, we don’t know where Snickerdoodle is,” Harry says, turns his back, and resumes calling.

            “Harry, come on, please? We can make posters and start calling some of the neighbors. That way, it’s not just us trying to do this all on our own.”

            Harry shakes his head vehemently. “No, I can’t do that.”

            “Why not?” Louis shouts over a clap of thunder. “Please, Harry.”

            Something inside Harry seems to break. Louis can see it happen, it’s like a piece inside of him just snaps and suddenly he’s someone else, someone sad and terrible but beautiful in a way Louis’ never seen before, and it scares him but he loves it and it’s everything he hoped for and so much less all at the same time.

            “This is all my fault,” Harry says, mixing tears with the rainwater.

            “Well, I know, you said—”

            “No,” Harry cuts him off, shaking his head. “I got this dog without asking you and it was really dumb of me, especially if we’re going to try to make this serious, and regular, and make it work, and I just show up with a dog, and then I leave you to do all of the stuff, and then I lose it, and I’m just not ready for this, I can’t do it, I can’t, I can’t.”

            Louis just grabs him and hugs him tight and let the saltiness of Harry’s tears mix with the rain coursing down his body.

            “Come on, babe, it’s not that bad,” Louis says.

            “Yes it is,” Harry says, like a belligerent toddler. “I should never have done this.”

            Louis sighs. “Okay, so maybe it wasn’t your best move, but I’m really not that upset. I mean, you should have asked me before you get her and I think it’s a ridiculous name, but you did it and we have her now and she’s our responsibility. Plus, she’s our responsibility now, and she’s cute. So we have to find her.”

            Harry nods, and scrunches up his face, clearly crying.

            “Come on, babe, let’s get you dried off and—”

            “And then you’re on this whole Nick thing,” Harry blurts out. “Like he’s everywhere, and you’re friends with him, and then you’re not and I don’t understand how this can happen but you know what I just don’t care at this point.”

            Louis cups his face in his hands and looks him in the eye. “Harry, I am not in a relationship with Nick. I have no feelings for him, I swear.”

            Harry looks at him, and Louis swallows his pride and goes on. “He’s just…some guy, I don’t know. If he can’t respect our boundaries, then I’m not going to be able to validate this whole relationship, and that’s clearly an issue. But I have you, and that’s all I need.”

            Harry smiles, and takes Louis’ hand.

            “I love you,” he says, and Louis smiles back.

            “I love you too.”

            Together, they walk through the rain, calling for Snickerdoodle every now and again. Louis manages to unlock the door, and as they enter the foyer they’re greeted by the wagging tail and pee of their new family member.

            “Well,” Louis says, "I think she knows where her home is." He takes Harry's hand, ignoring what's surely another text message from Nick about the Cheryl concert. "Just like us."


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just fyi this chapter is a doozy. brace yourselvesss
> 
> THANK YOU a million times for the kudos, comments, and bookmarks. the fact that this has reached 2000+ views in less than half the time it took to reach 1000 is so meaningful and i love each and every one of you for taking the time to sit and read this.
> 
> plus i have a special twist for this milestone...!
> 
> we're not over yet, so hang on for the ride!!

            Louis’ life begins to fall into a sort of routine. After the first week with the puppy, he starts just knowing what to do. It becomes a pattern, something etched right into his memory that he doesn’t bother to question. Get up in the morning, take Snickerdoodle out, wake up Harry, get in the shower, eat breakfast, drive to school, work all day, come home, take Snickerdoodle out, make dinner, grade, take Snickerdoodle out, watch telly, take Snickerdoodle out, go to bed.

            He thought he was starting something new, but now he’s starting to realize he’s just traded one cycle out for another.

            At school on Wednesday, he decides to eat with Zayn to catch him up on what’s been going in. He picks at his salad but doesn’t eat anything, and Zayn just sits and stares at him the way he always does when he knows something’s wrong.

            “Are you sure things aren’t moving too fast?” he asks finally. Louis laughs to himself, but just shakes his head.

            “I mean…even if it is, it’s a bit too late to stop it now, innit?” he asks. Zayn shrugs and smiles ruefully. They sit in silence for a little while longer and Louis watches the rain fall in pretty little sheets outside the window.

            “Have you heard from Nick lately?” Zayn tries. Louis just shakes his head, ignoring the fact that he’s been deleting hoards of text messages from him about the Cheryl concert.

            Zayn finally puts down his fork and grabs Louis’ hand to stop him from aimlessly sorting his salad by the size of the leaves. “Look at me, Lou.”

            Louis looks up at him, and he can tell Zayn’s hurting for him. “Zayn, really you don’t—”

            “No, I really do,” Zayn interrupts, “because something’s bothering you and as a mate I can’t let you go on without asking you what the hell is up because you’re clearly not telling me.”

            Louis just shakes his head and goes back to looking out the window. Zayn tries shaking his arm to get him to talk, but Louis ignores him. After a while, he takes his hand off and gets up.

            In some ways, Louis likes it, being left alone. Him and the rain.

 

* * * * *

 

            It’s in sixth hour that day that Louis decides he has to go.

            He’s going over the Byzantine period, with its flat figures, pointed feet, floating silhouettes, and golden skies, and so many pictures of Jesus it makes him a little bit ill to be surrounded by that much religion.

            “Why are you teaching us this?” Victoria, one of his students asks. Louis kind of looks at her, cockeyed, for a minute before she continues. “I mean, you said at the beginning of the year that art exists because the soul was meant to create things. Beautiful things.”

            Louis nods, encouraging her. “And these are beautiful, and all that, but they don’t make you excited, like you used to be.” Everyone’s staring at her now, and Louis doesn’t quite know what she’s talking about.

            “Before, when we were doing Nike of Samothrace and all of that stuff you couldn’t stop talking about how perfect all of this art was and how organic everything seemed. But like, now, you just seem sad about all of it. And it seems to me like it’s uninspired and I guess you sort of feel that too.”

            A lot of other kids start chiming in, but Louis tunes them all out.

            _“Point is, art isn’t always about serving a defined purpose. More often than not, it’s about what the painter wants to express.”_

Suddenly everything kind of makes sense, not like an electric moment, but more like two puzzle pieces fitting together. It’s not Harry that’s the problem. It never was. It’s him.

_“Just like that, they’ve made something real, and tangible. They have proof that this thought existed in their mind.”_

Even with Stan, it was always his problem. He killed a relationship, a future, a forever, with the best man that ever happened to him. Now he realizes he’s been systematically killing off any chance of having something with one of the most beautiful, genuine people ever.

_“Art is the product of the human soul. It exists because we need to create, and because we as people want to leave our mark on the world.”_

Harry Styles deserved so much better. Harry Styles deserved a man who loved puppies named Snickerdoodle and tried to help him cook and didn’t complain about doing laundry. Harry Styles deserved someone to give him more than just a “not tonight” whenever he wanted to be touched like that. Harry Styles deserved someone who could look him in the eye and remind him just how perfect he really was.

_“I think that’s beautiful, don’t you?”_

Louis Tomlinson is not that person.

 

* * * * *

 

            He’s on the road by two. He left school early, packed two suitcases with everything he needed, took Snickerdoodle out, and cried when he kissed her goodbye on the top of the head. He didn’t want to have to lock the door behind him, but he didn’t really care. Harry could have the apartment.

            The roads are slippery, but the rain has picked up just slightly, enough to make it a steady thumping on the roof of the car.

            Louis looks in the rearview mirror and sees everything he’d been dealt in life. The job he never really wanted. The boyfriends he didn’t deserve. The life he knew he could never have. And now this car, this stupid car, that has Harry’s jean jacket in the backseat and smells slightly of cum and sweat and quite strongly of love and possibility and he hates it and it’s horrible and he just has to get rid of it before he goes insane.

            But he can’t. For some reason, he can’t bring himself to sell this stupid car, the car that has Harry’s clothes and memories and the possibilities of everything they were and that always stalls at every single bloody red light. He just can’t do it.

            So he keeps driving.

            He’s put his phone in the glove compartment so he can ignore every text message or phone call he gets, and judging by the amount of vibrating the passenger side of the car is getting, he can tell he’s been getting quite a lot.

            Probably the majority of it is because of the note he left Harry on the counter that he wrote before he left school and edited the whole time he was packing. He can imagine Harry reading it, nodding, saying how true it was, and just letting him go.

            He hopes he won’t. But he knows he will.

 

* * * * *

 

            Harry can barely keep his eyes on the road. He’s dialing Louis’ number every five seconds, frantically trying to get him to pick up but he’s not answering. _Is he dead? Has he been kidnapped? What the hell is going on?_

He stumbles back to the apartment in a daze, unlocks the door and finds Snickerdoodle sitting on a pile of Louis’ dirty laundry in the living room, looking at him with big, sad, chocolate eyes. He goes over to pet her, coos at her, but she just sits and stares at him.

            Something flutters to the ground because he didn’t bother to close the door and the wind is blowing but he could really care less at this point about what exactly he forgot to do. He goes over quickly, and picks it up, finds it’s a note from Louis.

            A note from Louis. Ten million possibilities flash through his head. A ransom note, or a note explaining that he went out to the market for a flash, or that he was going to be late, or something that he doesn’t want to even think about.

            Taking a seat next to Snickerdoodle on the floor, he opens it and begins reading.

            _Dear Hazza,_

_I know you’re probably wondering where I am right now. And I’m wondering that too. Because I’m lost. I’m really, hopelessly lost._

_Ever since I first laid eyes on you, I knew you were someone special. You have a spirit that outshines anything else in the room, the world, the solar system. You are the brightest thing in the sky, every star I’ve ever seen, magnified by how amazing you are. Your heart is bigger than anything I’ve known, and you can do so much by just smiling._

_I’ll admit, I wasn’t ready to love you. But once I figured out I was going to, I knew I didn’t really have a choice. There were moments where I doubted you. Doubted us. I was a bit surprised by the whole puppy thing, and it was hard getting used to living with somebody else after so long. But you were patient, and kind, and true._

_But I don’t know where I am. And I don’t think I have known for a very long time. And it’s not fair to you that I’m hunting for some place in the sky while you’re up there at the tippy-top, shining with the best of them. I can’t drag you down just because I don’t know what I’m doing._

_I think I could have worked it out, except I don’t feel anything for my art anymore. I’ve always said that art was supposed to be beautiful, a representation of the inner workings of our souls. But I can’t see that anymore. I see it in you, everything you touch. But I’ve lost it in me._

_I won’t tell you where I’m going, because I honestly don’t know. Just don’t follow me, wherever I go. Promise me that. If you love me, you’ll let me go and you won’t ever look back. I know you, you’ll try to call me and text me a million times and get me to crack, but I won’t, I swear. I have to leave, I have to._

_Tell the landlord I’m letting you live in the apartment for right now, and make sure to feed Snickerdoodle those new milkbones she likes. Oh, and tell Zayn he can have his pants back._

_I love you, my Orion in the sky._

_Forever yours,_

_Lou xxxxxxxx_

* * * * *

 

            Louis puts on Radio One in the car, and Nick’s on air. Of course. He listens for a while, hears Nick say he’s stumbled across two backstage passes to a Cheryl Cole concert, and then turns off the radio. Let someone else have them.

            He’s still not sure how he feels about Nick. He can’t tell if Nick is some loose cannon, some anomaly that was just another x-factor in the universe he could never control, or if he was someone real.

            Part of the reason why he thinks he can’t figure that out is because he’s lost himself so badly. Instead of knowing exactly what and who he wants, he’s been stuck trying to fight for a relationship he never deserved.

            It’s kind of nice to drive in the rain. Just like the moon and the beach and loneliness, it’s always been there for him.

 

* * * * *

 

            “Where is he?” Zayn asks the second he bursts through the apartment door. Harry can’t say anything, he’s just lying in a ball on the floor with the letter, sobbing. Zayn’s heart breaks because Harry is rocking back and forth and he looks so lost.

            Snickerdoodle runs up and pees on Zayn’s shoe, and Zayn yelps, which makes Snickerdoodle yelp, and then Zayn awkwardly blurts out “Louis never told me you guys had a puppy”.

            Harry doesn’t say anything, just keeps crying, moving the letter over and over in his hands, tracing the letters with the tip of his pointer finger, drowning in everything it means for him and for Louis and for them together and the life he had mapped out in his head.

            Zayn’s not sure what to do, so he just sits on the floor with him and Snickerdoodle comes and nestles back into the pile of laundry and sits next to the inconsolable Harry and Zayn just kind of rubs his hair and tries to soothe him but it’s no use.

            “Shh,” he keeps saying, “shh. Liam’s on his way, he’s bringing Niall. They’re on their way over. We’ll find him, don’t worry.”

            Harry just sobs harder. “He told me not to look for him,” he chokes out. “He doesn’t want me to find him.”

            Zayn just shakes his head and dials Louis’ cell number. Nothing. He tries again, and gets the same result. Again, and again, and—

            “It’s no use, he said not to call him!” Harry screams, grabbing the phone out of Zayn’s hand and hurling it against the wall. Snickerdoodle jumps and yelps in fear as it shatters, the glass screen splintering into a million little pieces. “He doesn’t want to talk to you, or me, or anybody. Why can’t you see that?”

             Harry is literally screaming so loudly that Snickerdoodle is shaking and hiding in Zayn’s lap and Zayn doesn’t really know what to say so he just pets the dog and looks at his feet and then Harry just gradually collapses back into himself, folds into the letter and dissolves into tears again.

             Liam comes in a few minutes later, followed by Niall. Zayn’s never seen Liam look so scared in his whole life, not even when there was that lockdown at school and they thought it wasn’t really a drill. He’s tense, every muscle in his body taut with anxiety. Niall just keeps rubbing his hands through his hair, fraught with tension and fear. For the first time ever, Zayn looks at Niall as more than just a pretty face, but a real guy.

             “Where is he? Did you call him?” Liam asks, ignoring Snickerdoodle, who comes over to pee on his and Niall’s shoes.

             Zayn points over to the wall where his phone lies in pieces. “I tried.”

             Niall gets paper towels to wipe off the dog pee and Liam decides he’ll take Snickerdoodle for a walk but Zayn knows it’s really to try calling Louis in a place where Harry can’t break his phone for trying.

             Not exactly knowing what to do, Zayn just gets up and starts making tea, boiling water on the stove and searching through the teabags in the cupboard.

             Niall’s wiping off the floor when Harry sniffles and sits up a little bit. Both he and Zayn turn to look at Harry, who looks worse than death, nose running and hair mussed up.

            “Just go home,” he says. Neither Zayn nor Niall move, not sure of how to react. “Just go home,” Harry repeats. They both look at each other.

             Harry sits up fully, wiping his eyes with the backs of his hands. “He said in the letter not to go after him, so we’re not going to go after him.”

            Zayn looks at Niall. “But I thought we—”

            “I said, no,” Harry murmurs. It’s solid, and weighty, and full of authority and sadness, so Niall and Zayn get their coats and go, leaving Harry alone on the floor in a pile of dirty clothes.

 

* * * * *

 

            Louis has been driving for two hours now, and he’s not tired. He’s getting closer to his destination, even if he’s not there yet.

            He’s not sure it’s the right one, but it’s the first place that came to mind.

            Seeing the signs for M23 to London, he turns onto the motorway and speeds up to meet the traffic.

            He still has one stop to make first, but he has all the time in the world.

 

* * * * *

 

            “Where are you going?” Liam demands from across the street where Snickerdoodle is sniffing in a flower bed. “You just left him there?”

            “He told us to leave,” Niall says, throwing his coat in the back of Zayn’s car. Liam scoffs, rolling his eyes.

            “So you just did it? You actually let him make you leave? He’s having a crisis, we have no bloody idea where Louis even is right now, and you’re just going to leave?”

            Zayn can’t take it anymore. He’s not sure whether it was the dog pee, or the phone throw, or seeing Harry so upset, or seeing Niall so upset, but he just snaps. He’s always been the quiet one, and it’s time for that to change.

            “Yeah, Liam, I am. You can take his fucking dog back and leave him alone. Louis is a grown man and so is Harry and if he wants us to stay out of it, we’re fucking going to stay out of it, no questions asked. I don’t give a flying fuck if you don’t like it, that’s what he told us to do and that’s what we’re going to do.”

            Going to the driver’s side of the car, he gets in and slams the door, waiting for Niall to get in the passenger side before speeding off.

            “That was really brave of you,” Niall says after a while. Zayn smiles thinly. “Nah, I mean it. You’re really something, Zayn.”

            And suddenly, unexpectedly, out of the blue, he reaches over and kisses Zayn on the cheek.

            No matter how upset Zayn is, he is not too upset to enjoy that.

 

* * * * *

 

            Louis pulls off onto the A2300 and drives a ways before finding a long, winding gravel path. He knows it because it’s the only one not locked off by a gate or anything. Slowly, he pulls up to the curb and begins the long journey upwards.

            He always liked the trees, the way they hung over him when he drove down this path. In the rain, it’s especially nice, because everything is quiet. It’s like someone turned the world on mute, and it’s just him and it feels so peaceful.

            By the time he goes through the second s-curve, he can see the house. It’s a beautiful grey estate, the kind he always imagined Jane Eyre wrote about or Madonna lived in. It sits comfortably on a rise, not dominating the scene, but asserting itself in a way that wasn’t overbearingly austere but still serious and composed.

            There’s no one home, he can tell. The silver car is gone, which means they’re out shopping or in the city or something. He likes it better that way, because he can take his time.

            Getting out of the car, he walks over to the front door and reads the plaque hanging next to the golden house numbers.

            “Home of the Lucas Family,” he reads aloud. “Martha, Allen, and Stanley.”

            He knows Stan hasn’t lived there for years, and he was never expecting to find him there at all. There was just some reason he decided to come there, some need for closure or something bigger that he couldn’t quite explain.

            For a few minutes, he wanders around the estate. The tree where they had that picnic in July. The secret path they took to go swimming in the lake. The spot they had amazing, beautiful sex in that one time till they were both out of breath and covered in sweat and love.

            He stops in front of the dying elm tree in the back. The elm tree under which, in front all of all of their friends and family, Stan had gotten down on one knee and pulled out a beautiful black box with a ring and asked Louis for his hand in marriage.

            Looking slightly to the right, he spots the gardenia bush where Stan chased him to after he didn’t give him an answer and just walked off. He remembers wishing he could just melt away, hit rewind, make the whole thing disappear.

            Before he gets in his car, he stands in front of the spot he remembers his car parked in, the car he got in and drove away without a look back, never to see Stan again. He left Stan in the middle of his driveway, ring in hand, a future fractured, and an entire life ruined by one selfish, stupid, impassioned decision that he could never take back.

            He wonders where Stan is now, what he’s doing. Last he heard, Stan had a nice boyfriend named Callum. They’d been dating for four months or so, and everyone said they were great together.

            Before he gets too lost, he gets back in his car, starts the engine and pulls out of the long driveway. Just like before, he doesn’t look behind him to see the estate, his past, fade out of sight.

 

* * * * *

 

            A bit before ten in the evening, he pulls into the heart of London. The city is alive, breathing as one unit.

            He doesn’t know where he’s going. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. But he’ll figure it out. He’ll get there.

            Parking the car on a side street, he realizes how cold it is out. He looks in the backseat, seeing Harry’s jean jacket laying in a ball, before shutting the door. He’d rather risk it the few blocks to the hotel.

 

* * * * *

 

            Harry doesn’t sleep well that night at all.

            Snickerdoodle lies curled up next to him, nestled in the crook of his arm. He just lies awake all night while the dog snores, repeating one phrase over and over in his head.

            _I will follow you._

_I will follow you._

_I will follow you._


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAYYYY here's the last full chapter
> 
> it's time to wrap this up :( everything must come to an end, and this way i can do something new! if you guys wanna read it, that is
> 
> lemme know what you guys think
> 
> thank you for everything....even if i had one bookmark, one view, and one comment i'd be so thankful. <3
> 
> i'll do a big fat thank you after the epilogue

   It’s been a month since Louis left. Harry wakes up every morning to a cold, bare apartment, a bed with too much room on one side, half a closet empty. Snickerdoodle sleeps at the foot of the queen sized bed, and lays by the door every morning while he makes tea and cooks eggs on the stove. He sits across from an empty chair, watches telly next to a vacant couch cushion, and drives to work with the passenger seat full of so many could have beens.

   The day after Louis left, his resignation letter arrived. That was when Harry knew it was serious; it wasn’t just some passing thing, something that Harry would just wake up from later and call it a day. Not knowing what to do, the principal asked if Harry would step in for a few classes a week while they searched for a full time teacher, considering he knew much of the art already that he’d be teaching.

   So, twice a day if he could, Harry rode the creaky elevator down to the first floor and unlocked Louis’ quiet, cold classroom and taught kids who didn’t want him there. They wanted Louis, he knew it. And so did he.

   By now he’s on medieval art. It’s dark, highly religious. Everything is grave-faced, stiff, and overly ornate in a way that is confusingly unique and identical to every other building in Europe. The kids hate it, he can tell. Every time he gets to a new church with the same vaulted ceilings, jeweled altar, and apse painting, they stifle sighs and he sinks further and further into his shell.

   Zayn’s not much better. Even though he and Niall have gotten closer, he and Liam aren’t talking, and Harry can tell that the tension between them has driven a rift through the entire group. Louis didn’t know that by leaving he’d create this disaster all around him. He just left, swept the rug out from under everyone’s feet, and walked away clean.

   And Harry hates him for it.

 

* * * * *

 

   Louis wakes up at six o’clock in the morning, like clockwork, and then realizes he has another two hours to sleep. He tries rolling over and going back to sleep, but he can’t, so he just stares at the wall and hums some Spice Girls and counts sheep and goes backwards through the alphabet and just doesn’t think about Harry he just doesn’t he’s not thinking about him he’s not he’s not he’s not.

   Finally he just gives up and gets out of bed to make some tea. He puts the telly on to watch Daybreak, and sits on his bed with a tray and eats quietly while he watches the newscast on mute. He doesn’t want to hear anything anymore. The silence in his life is loud enough.

   He can’t believe it’s been a month since he left, gave up everything up, wrote that note, quit his job, and moved to London. He also can’t believe it’s just been a month that he’s been working at the Royal Gallery as an intern, spending time like he always dreamed in the back rooms of the museum caring for the art, barely breathing on the pieces because he’s afraid he’ll hurt them somehow.

   It’s work, and even though it’s not a huge amount of money (certainly less than he made teaching), but it’s enough to get by. He was lucky enough to find a flat the day after he arrived in London, bleary-eyed from driving and soaked to the bone from the rain. He had checked into a hotel and crashed for the night and then literally walked out the front door and into the building across the street to inquire about a flat.

   It’s too big, though, and he knows it. The caretaker only had a two bedroom one, but he gave it to Louis cheap because he needed to get it off his hands, and Louis needed a place to sleep, so it worked out well. But there’s so much space, and a humongous bed in the middle of one room and a full den and just one person who comes there to eat and sleep.

   He’s tried going to some of the West End clubs. He gets plenty of blokes who think he’s decent, and plenty he’d like to spend the night with, but every time he makes plans to see one of them, he just can’t do it. Something inside of him holds him back from doing it.

   Something called Harry Styles.

   For whatever reason, he can’t give up hope that Harry will call him. He said not to follow him on purpose, but he just needs to know that Harry’s okay. Because he certainly isn’t.

   The whole thing is his fault, he’s not playing stupid. He could say Harry put too much pressure on him, or forced him into a tight spot, but he knows he’d be lying. The truth is, Louis is just too messed up to handle everything. And he doesn’t deserve Harry, he never did.

   It was pretty bloody stupid of him to put his heart into a letter, and to just pack and leave without saying anything. But it seemed easier, not having to see Harry’s face. That’s one image he knows he could never live with.

 

* * * * *

 

   Harry stands under the faucet in the shower, out of which is pouring ice cold water. He normally would be cringing at how cold it is, but he doesn’t move, he just lets the tiny icicle-like droplets rake down his skin, drawing their sharp nails over his body.

   After a while, he decides it’s time to get out. He knows it started out hot. That was an hour ago.

   Snickerdoodle waits on the bathmat outside of the shower door. She doesn’t move, even when Harry moves like he’s going to step on her. He just sighs and makes the awkward lunge over her to the counter. Wiping off the steam from the mirror, he looks at his reflection.

   He doesn’t recognize himself. He doesn’t recognize his life.

   Before, it was colorful, dazzling, vibrant, and explosion of color and sound and love and Louis and possibilities and a future and something so deeply hopeful that it was bursting out of the mirror, and now it’s just him and grey, grey, grey, grey, grey.

   He takes Snickerdoodle for a walk in the dark, where he won’t run into anybody. It’s easier that way, much less awkward. The neighbors apparently know more about each other than they let on, and the first few days were full of plenty of awkward conversations.

   “Where’s Louis?” one of them asked, two days in.

   “Gone,” Harry had replied, gruff and terse. She didn’t get the message.

   “Gone where?”

   “Away,” Harry barked. She had just frowned at him.

   “Well why?” she had asked. Inside Harry’s head a million answers flew around, smacking into each other until it hurt. _It’s because he doesn’t love me and there’s Nick and he’s fucked up and there’s a mess and I bought a dog and it’s stupid stupid stupid and I really fucked it up this time, I did, and he’s never coming back._

   “I don’t know” was all he could come up with.

 

* * * * *

 

            “Morning, Louis!” Jade says from the check-in counter. “What’s new this morning?”

            Louis puts on his happy face, and waves her off with a cheeky grin. “Ah, Jade, you know, the usual. My life is boring. How’s that scarf coming along?”

            She blushes and looks down at her knitting needles. “Oh, well enough! I’ll let you see it later if you’d like!”

            “Like? I’d love!” Louis shouts as he powerwalks down the corridor, letting his face fall into its default position, sad, real, vulnerable.

            He swipes in to the curator’s area and puts down his bag before taking the tarp off of a medieval tapestry he’d been working on for several days. It was on loan from a cathedral in France. The Bayeux Tapestry. He knew it like the back of his hand. Thinking about it, he realizes he’d be teaching it right now if he were still there.

            Running a gloved hand carefully over the ancient fabric, he goes over what he would say, what he said every year. A continuous frieze-like style, the triumph of William the Conqueror, a struggle for power, beautiful woven patterns creating an intriguing if not mono-dimensional narrative for the ages.

            Reaching for a brush, he carefully begins wiping thin layers of dust off of the fabric. He’s gotten pretty far across, but he still has a way to go.

            The first time he saw it, he nearly had a heart attack. Everything suddenly clicked into place, he realized what this meant. His whole life he had been waiting for an opportunity like this, to brush shoulders with the art and examine it up close, feel like a part of the movement.

            It was what he wanted.

            It wasn’t what he deserved.

            By the time the lunch break rolls around, Louis has silently slipped out of the back exit doors, leaving a resignation letter behind.

 

* * * * *

 

            Harry doesn’t know what to say anymore.

            It’s sixth hour, on a Friday, and everyone’s tired and there’s this stupid piece of art that he knows absolute shit about and no one’s even paying attention to him. All of these other teachers can get so many kids to sign up and pay attention and do well, so much participation, and commentary, and he’s already twelve weeks in and can’t do shit.

            There are the same four or so kids who participate, and God, he loves them, he loves them so much, but bloody hell, why can no one else show the slightest interest in anything he’s doing?

            “I miss Louis,” he says finally. Everyone turns to look at him.

            “I miss him every day. You know, I drive around after school so I don’t have to come back to an empty flat? I mean, I stay here til about six or so, once the caretakers wanna come in and clean and what not I leave, but then I just drive so I walk in and go straight to bed. I can’t bear to be in there anymore.”

            No one says anything for a while. Harry stares at him, and they stare back.

            “I miss him too,” one girl says after a while.

            “Where’d he go?” another asks. Harry just shrugs.

            “I dunno. He said not to follow him.”

            “That is the stupidest bloody thing I’ve ever heard.” It’s a twelfth year, one who never says anything in class and who gets C’s on all the exams and doesn’t seem to give two shits about art. “He said not to follow him, so you follow him. If you really love him, you’ll do whatever it takes to get him back again.”

            Everyone turns to look at him. He shrugs nonchalantly. “I mean, I’m serious. Every time somebody tells you not to do something that’s ‘cause they secretly hope you’ll do exactly that. Plus, you’re a shit teacher. And totally miserable. And I want Mr. T back.”

            Harry agrees with everything except for that thing about being a shit teacher. But the kid’s right, so he doesn’t give him a detention.

            An hour later, Harry’s on the road, Snickerdoodle in the backseat. He’s on his way to London to find Louis.

 

* * * * *

 

            Louis doesn’t know where to go anymore.

            He left Harry because he didn’t deserve him, didn’t need to be bound to someone who could do so much better than a miserable little prick like him. He left his job because it was everything he ever wanted, his dream in life and he’d just fucked over the best person on the face of the earth all because he knew Harry didn’t deserve him because he would surely just fuck things up at some point anyway and do stupid shit like leave his job.

            Things are complicated, to say the least.

            He has enough money to get him rent for December, which means that he can get out with the excuse of visiting his mom and stepdad for Christmas and just won’t come back. But now he has no job, and he has no idea what to do because it’s two in the afternoon and there’s nothing on telly and he’s completely aimless.

            After padding around the kitchen for a while, he decides to take a walk, even though he doesn’t know where to go.

            He feels aimless, to put it nicely. His life went from having a complete direction to having absolutely no fucking clue where it was going, and it sucks and he knows it. And now he’s in the middle of London with nobody and no job and it’s entirely his fault because he had everything and knows he didn’t deserve it and now he has nothing and goddamnit, can’t he just be happy for once in his fucking life?

            Every time he has something, he throws it away, and every time he doesn’t have something he grovels for it, looking like an idiot groping around in the dark for something that he doesn’t even know exists.

            He knows, deep down, that life isn’t one big happy ending. It doesn’t resolve itself in five minutes, five pages of a book, suddenly everyone winds up being thrilled with the course their life has taken and then just call it a day and live happily ever fucking after.

            Sometimes there’s ambiguity, a grey area that you can never decipher. And sometimes that’s okay. And sometimes it’s not.

            But he likes the grey area. It makes him feel like he’s not alone. There’s something in the middle, something to show him he’s not all by himself. And he likes that.

            So when Harry shows up four hours later, in his car, with the dog and a tip from a quick Google search on Louis, he’s not happy, not at all.

            He doesn’t even smile too wide when he gets to hug Harry, bring him warm into his arms, feel him again. Not too much. 


	13. Epilogue

            Life is not a neat ending. There are no strings to tie up every loose end in the world. And even though you picture things happening one way, some things are better left unanswered.

            Louis and Harry sit and talk for a while in his apartment while Snickerdoodle sleeps contentedly on the bed. They talk about why Louis left and why Harry followed him and what this means for Louis and what this means for Harry and what this means for them. They don’t come up with any answers, and they know that’s okay.

            As they drive home together the next morning, Louis stares out the window and thinks about how his life has turned out. He’s done a lot of running, and he’s not sure he’s done yet. He knows that for the time being, he’s staying put, right here.

            Even if it’s not with Harry, he’ll be where he needs to be. It could be with Harry, he’s not sure. Maybe he’ll never know the right answer.

            Harry turns to look at him, and instinctively puts out his hand, then retracts it, realizing that things are different. They’ve changed, and that’s just part of the equation.

            His phone buzzes. A text from Nick. He doesn’t answer it, but he doesn’t delete it either. That door should still be open, just like every other one in his life.

            Scrolling through his messages, he rereads his conversation with Zayn, who’s just as blissfully lost. He and Niall are trying the whole dating thing, for the first time in Zayn’s adult life, really. He’s not sure how it will work it, but he’s along for the ride.

            Liam’s talking to him again, which he’s grateful for. He reminds himself to pick up a copy of the Toy Story poster he saw in that rest stop before they get back home.

            The tone of his life has changed. He was sick of patterns, optimistic, then confused, scared, happy, lonely. Now he’s just trying to be, whatever that is.

            The people of his life have changed. Snickerdoodle is snoring away in the backseat. She’s grown so much in the month since Louis last saw her, her lanky legs filling up most of one cushion among bags and other suitcases. He smiles, thinking about how lucky it is that accidents happen all the time.

            As the trees roll by, he things about the lesson he’ll be teaching on Monday, now that he somehow managed to get his old job back. For some reason, he’s more grateful for it than he ever thought possible. It’s probably time to move into the Renaissance, out of the Dark Ages.

            He remembers in the beginning of the year, how he woke up and smelled smoke. Smoke of something, he didn’t know what, and he was running from Stan and into the counter and away from and towards everything that made him who he was. And he knows he still will have moments where he’ll want to bolt.

            But it’s okay when people follow you. No matter where you go, or who they are in your life, there will always be people to follow him wherever he needs them.

            He smiles at Harry, who smiles back. He’s decided on his next journey; he and Harry have a lot of work to do, whether as friends or, maybe someday, more.

            But things are looking up. For the first time in his life, Louis is running into the unknown, and he’s ready for whatever that may mean. Because, after all, he knows that his friends, the people he loves, will follow him no matter what.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this was my first work. ever. never did a oneshot, never did anything. this wasn't beta'd. this wasn't crowdsourced. this was just me, on friday nights, writing and trying to get through whatever i needed to through these characters.
> 
> i never had 10k hits or 600 kudos. instead, i have the best group of loyal readers who cared deeply about every word i wrote, and believed in me no matter what.
> 
> but everything has to come to an end, and i know that it's time to move on from this. and i know, no matter how many hits i may have or how many kudos i may get, i can come back here and be humbled by the kindness and love and support of such a loyal group of readers and followers for giving me the impetus to keep doing what i'm doing.
> 
> it's been quite the journey, and it's coming to an end here...i hope you've enjoyed it as much as i have.
> 
> anyway, please continue to read anything else that i publish in the future. thank you a million times, thank you thank you thank you. even if you never read another word i write, know that you have a special place in my heart. love always <3
> 
> oh, and if you guys liked that please please pleasseeee read my other work "the very error of the moon" which can be found here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1073187 thank you all!!!!


	14. Chapter 14

Okay this isn't really a chapter per se, but just wanted to let everybody know I'm starting (and hopefully publishing!) the first chapter of a sequel to this tomorrow! The ending was kind of a let down, and I really missed this, so I wanted to start something up again with them. Yay!


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